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DANIEL STEELE. 



JESUS EXULTANT; 



OR, 



CHRIST NO PESSIMIST, 



And Other Essays. 



BY 

/ 

DANIEL STEELE, D. D., 



RECENT PROFESSOR IN THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY. AUTHOR OF 
"LOVE ENTHRONED," "MILESTONE PAPERS," " ANTINOMIAN1SM REVIVED," 
" COMMENTARIES ON LEVITICUS, NUMBERS AND JOSHUA," " HALF HOURS 
WITH ST. PAUL," "THE GOSPEL OF THE COMFORTER," AND 
CO-AUTHOR OF " PEOPLE'S NEW TESTAMENT COM- 
MENTARY," AND REVISER OF " BINNEY's THE- 
OLOGICAL COMPEND IMPROVED." 



BOSTON AND CHICAGO : 

CHRISTIAN WITNESS CO. 
1899. 



£ 

¥ 



&«&* 



24104 



Copyrighted, 1899, 
By The Christian Witness Company. 



TWO COPIES REC IVEO, 



111899 






DeMcator^* 

To the Memory of my Mother, 
Clarissa Brainerd Steele. 

1788—1853. 



PKEFACE. 



The sunset hour of life's brief day has afforded me 
leisure, and God has given strength to review the themes 
which have engrossed my thoughts during its early and 
midday hours. So many and so emphatic are the daily 
commendations of some of the fruits of those hours of 
happy toil, which are in the form of books, that the writer 
has been encouraged to gather another basketful of the 
same kind of fruit and send it to the world's autumnal 
market ere the winter's snows shall have covered his orchard. 
This basket contains a greater variety than he has ever set 
before the Christian public. He has purposely omitted the 
culture of one species — the crab apple. 

The special purpose of the first two chapters is to cheer 
the hearts of all Christian laborers with the assurance of 
the ultimate evangelization of the whole world by the 
agencies now employed in the dispensation of the Holy 
Spirit, and to counteract the depressing effects of that 
theory of the last things which teaches that the world will 
wax worse till the end of the present age. 

The seventeenth essay institutes a search among all 
the schools of philosophy for a measure large enough to 
ascertain the proportions of man. The search demonstrates 
that the gospel of Christ is the only mirror in which man 
can get a full-length view of his own greatness. The latter 
part of this chapter the reader will find more interesting 
than the beginning. D. S. 

Milton. November 7, 1S98. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Jesus Exultant 1 

II. Wesley Expectant 30 

III. The Whole Family in Heaven and Earth . . 41 

IV. Beholding and Sharing Christ's Glory ... 63 
V. The Call to Preach the Gospel 81 

VI. St. Paul's Only Theme 98 

VLL The Kingdom of God 118 

VIII. The Day-Star in the Heart 144 

IX. The Words of Eternal Life 165 

X. The Sons of God 183 

XI. Power from on High 200 

XII. The Holy Spirit's Earthly Temple 223 

XIII. Buying and Selling Truth 234 

XIV. The Unsearchable Riches 253 

XV. Knowing by Obeying 278 

XVI. The Greater Works of Believers 295 

XVII. What is Man? 309 



JESUS EXULTANT. 



CHAPTEE I. 

JESUS EXULTANT.* 

" Jesus exultavit Spiritu Sancto."— Luke x. 21, Vulgate. 

A peasant youth went forth one day from a mean and 
obscure country village in the East with the idea that he 
would conquer the whole world. The method of con- 
quest adopted by this aspiring mechanic in the humble 
walks of a private citizen was as novel as his scheme ap- 
peared to be chimerical. He did not employ the printing- 
press to laud his merits and create public opinion in his 
favor. This instrument of power had not been invented 
and enthroned over civilized society. This young artif- 
icer, who had just left the workshop with callous palms, 
had no intention of raising a new political party to lift 
him into supreme authority by its votes as a demagogue 
identifying himself with the "dear people" of whose 
rights he was, by loud profession, to be the philanthropic 
champion. It was not in his programme to amass vast 
armies and direct them with Napoleonic strategy over 
bloody battlefields to the empire of the world. It was 

* « He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the 
earth."— Isaiah xlii. 4. 






2 JESDS EXULTANT. 

not his purpose to intensify race prejudice and to hurl 
the strongest nation against the weaker ones in accord 
with the wicked maxim of tyrants, "divide and con- 
quer;" nor did he organize secret leagues sworn to com- 
pass his ambitious design. Nor did he plot to crown him- 
self lord of all by the employment of human cunning 
and Jesuitical intrigue in the cabinets of kings. He re- 
lied only on that intangible abstraction which men call 
truth. This was his victorious sword. His bullets and 
bombs, his cannon balls, grape and canister shot were 
words which have been contemptuously defined as 
"mouthfuls of spoken wind." His agents were to be no 
astute diplomatists skilled in making the worse appear 
the better reason; no philosophers from the Porch or the 
Academy, but a company of ordinary craftsmen drilled 
only in the rudest forms of labor. 

"With a manifesto as magnificent as the supremacy of 
the world, and with weapons so impracticable, and agen- 
cies so insufficient, this uncultured, untravelled, un- 
known young man began to astonish and alarm his fam- 
ily and narrow circle of friends by declarations implying 
that his scheme of universal conquest was absolutely 
certain of accomplishment. He even coolly assumes it 
as a fact already accomplished. Hear him incidentally 
drop the assurance of his ultimate triumph over all the 
nations of the earth. Of a woman who had at great self- 
sacrifice expressed confidence in his character, sympathy 
with his purpose and loyalty to, his person, he said: 
"Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole 
woeld, that also which this woman hath done shall be 
spoken of for a memorial of her." Thus when sur- 



JESUS EXULTANT. 3 

rounded by a beggarly retinue of a dozen common work- 
ing men, as feeble a military force as FalstafFs regi- 
ment, together with a few women gathered from homes 
of poverty, and possibly from haunts of vice, this villager 
of Galilee assumes without the least waver of doubt that, 
beyond oceans yet unnavigated, and through islands and 
continents yet undiscovered, his heralds will surely make 
their way and lift up their voices to proclaim his right 
to rule the world, despite the foreseen and foretold re- 
sistance of every nation to the proclamation of this new 
King. And what is still more wonderful, the sovereignty 
at which he aimed is far more difficult than that acquired 
and exercised by the Alexanders, Caesars and Napoleons 
of history. It was not the subjugation of men's persons 
by physical force, but the conquest of their hearts by a 
purely spiritual power working through the enlighten- 
ment of the intellect, the conviction of the moral reason, 
and the persuasion of the will. It is a harder task for a 
man to make another love and obey him with a disinter- 
ested affection and a genuine loyalty than it is to make 
a million men fear, cower and bow the cringing knee at 
the behest of armed power. This young man aimed at 
a still higher mark, the radical transformation of the 
whole human race from sensual to spiritual; from sinful 
to holy; from slavery to lust to the freedom of purity; 
from the yoke of unholy tempers and degrading passions 
to obedience to conscience; and from a love of falsehood 
to delight in the truth. He purposed to re-create fallen 
humanity by extracting the inveterate, hereditary prone- 
ness to sin which sooner or later breaks out in personal 
sin entailing guilt. If you wish to realize on a small 



4 JESUS EXULTANT. 

scale the ease or difficulty of this transformation, try to 
lift some sinner out of the miry pit in which he is rapidly 
sinking. Go to yonder fallen sister and try to lure her 
back to the path of virtue; go to that vile rake boasting 
of his fiendish skill in pushing frailty off the precipice of 
infamy, and turn him into a self-sacrificing missionary to 
the Congo State, willing to lose his life to save a soul; 
join a woman's crusade against the saloon and try to 
breathe humane feelings into the flinty heart of the 
money- worshipping dramseller; or attempt the reforma- 
tion of one poor, bloated, beer-soaked, blear-eyed sot, lift- 
ing him out of the gutter and so transfiguring him as to 
be a fit companion of saints in this world and worthy to 
be enthroned with archangels in the world to come. Go 
try to inspire generosity in the heart of that aged miser 
sleepless on his bags of gold. Endeavor to effect a radi- 
cal change in these characters whose evil habits are as 
changeless as the spots of the leopard or the hue of the 
Ethiopian, by turning their natures from their down- 
ward course and making them run uphill toward holi- 
ness and heaven. Go forth and try to make all bad peo- 
ple love you, not by warm hand-shakings as a candidate 
on election day, not by patting vile men on the shoulder 
and calling them "jolly good fellows," not by flattering 
their pride and excusing their vices, but by scathing re- 
bukes for their misdeeds, and you will begin to realize 
the magnitude of the work to which this Hebrew Ee- 
former confidently put his hand. By uncovering every 
man's sins he proposed to attach him by cords of love to 
his own person. It was the attempt to perform the pro- 
phetic miracle of changing the thorn into the fir tree and I 



JESUS EXULTANT. 



the brier into the myrtle tree — the everlasting sign of the 
supernatural origin of the Nazarene, a sign which will 
attend all the Christian ages, for it shall not be cut off. 
More than the radical change of individuals did he un- 
dertake. He put forth his hand to reconstruct society 
from its very foundations. The sins of mankind had en- 
trenched themselves in organizations and become em- 
bodied in social institutions, incorporated and shielded 
by governments, licensed and protected by law. Might 
was making right. Wrong was universal. Civil gov- 
ernments, though instituted by God for human well be- 
ing, had been perverted into instruments of personal ag- 
grandizement to the detriment and oppression of the 
groaning millions. Keros were standing on the necks of 
prostrate nations. Liberty had fled from the earth; jus- 
tice had fallen in the streets; philanthropy was a myth 
dimly floating down from a long-lost paradise. Slavery 
was almost universal. Every continent and habitable 
island, except Australia, was groaning beneath the curse 
of human bondage without the mitigations breathed into 
it by the gospel working out its inevitable extinction. 
The Eoman master could, under the shelter of law, chop 
up a slave into mince-meat for his fish pond or inflict any 
refinement of torture which his caprice or fury might 
suggest. Everywhere polytheism, teaching the grossest 
sensuality with the sanctions of religion, reared her im- 
pure altars and lured her willing votaries to the most li- 
centious rites. The Asiatic Ashtoreth, the Venus of 
Greece and Rome, gathered to her consecrated brothel 
temples crowds of impure worshippers. Lustful im- 
pulses were regarded as holy, and debauchery was sacred. 



6 JESUS EXULTANT. 

We who have never seen idolatry are apt to think that it 
is quite respectable and that God's threatenings of pun- 
ishment uttered against it in the Bible are altogether too 
severe. A visit to the idol temples of India to-day would 
open your eyes. There they are to be seen, as there were 
seen in the days of Herodotus in the fifth century before 
Christ the mammoth images of Phallus and its myriads 
of vile worshippers of both sexes. (See your diction- 
aries and cyclopaedias.) To be more explicit would sub- 
ject your preacher to the charge of impure utterances in 
a holy place. Vices now nameless in the purified vocab- 
ulary of Christian civilization, but named with sickening 
frequency in Latin and Greek lexicons, were lying un- 
concealed everywhere on the very surface of society. 
Even the men of taste and culture, the poets, were ideal- 
izing with all the drapery of an unchaste imagination 
impurities worse than beastly, making vices unnatural 
the themes of their muses, and shamelessly confessing 
their personal indulgence in loathsome practices which 
in all Christian lands the police would banish from 
decent society. You will find in an unexpurgated edi- 
tion of Horace leprous verses which all the gold in the 
Bank of England could not have hired Tennyson or 
Longfellow to write. The truth is that when Jesus 
Christ began his moral transformation of mankind, 
Rome, the fountain of law, was putrescent in its immo- 
ralities. Pompeii and Herculaneum were cesspools of lust, 
sealed up by Divine Providence with lava torrents and 
ashes, to be preserved to coming Christian generations as 
specimens of pagan character, their exhumed walls pre- 
senting paintings which vouch for the truth of the first 



JESUS EXULTANT. 



chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Through all lands, 
on thousands of altars, were human sacrifices burning, 
sending up their offensive odors into the nostrils of the 
Almighty. Even the worship of civilized men and high- 
born women was inconceivably impure. Those incite- 
ments to vice of which our laws prohibit even the sale, 
were publicly paraded in every street, and filled the in- 
fant mind with a depraved animalism which stifled and 
poisoned the unfolding of the moral nature. The only 
temples that could draw a crowd were those of the libid- 
inous Elora and the lascivious Bona Dea. At the festi- 
vals of these obscene goddesses, before the Eoman day 
had sunk to its short-lived twilight, crowds, not only of 
harlots, but of mature matrons, might be seen wending 
their way to these temples in the Via Sacra, not simply 
with their persons negligently exposed, but in a state of 
absolute nudity. In the spacious and magnificent baths 
which the prodigality of successive emperors had reared 
in the imperial city, both sexes at the price of a farthing 
were indulged in promiscuous bathing. In the crowded 
theatres, when the first scenes of the play had been acted, 
and the passions of the audience had been fired by ob- 
scene verses, a sea of voices usually called out, Nudentur 
mima?, "Let the actors be disrobed," and the order was 
no sooner issued than obeyed. Obscenities far more 
polluting than any to be seen in the worst penny theatre 
that attracts the dregs of New York, London or Paris, 
were enacted in the Flavian amphitheatre for the 
amusement of the emperor and the nobility of Rome. 
Vice had attacked the very foundations of society, and 
families were expiring so fast that a premium was 



8 JESUS EXULTANT. 

offered to the man who would transmit a legitimate off- 
spring to posterity. Humankind was gradually dying 
out, and if the process of dissolution had continued un- 
checked by the infusion of a pure blood and the preach- 
ing of a chaste creed, the race must have become extinct. 

Brutal and cruel indeed were the amusements of the 
best classes of Roman citizens. Gladiators were trained 
to butcher one another to make a festive holiday. The 
refining influence of woman was destroyed by the yoke 
which harnessed her with the beast of burden to draw 
the plough or cart of her hard-hearted master, man. It 
is painful to present these pictures, but they are neces- 
sary to correct the rose-colored views of paganism with 
which modern sceptics are regaling our young people, 
presenting an Arcadian simplicity and purity transcend- 
ing the moral virtues of Christianity. 

But the worst of this bad case has not yet been told. 
The depravity which was lying on the surface of society 
was inborn and not the result of imitating bad examples ; 
not 'a contagion by contact with vicious associations and 
easily medicated by such outward appliances as ethical 
instruction, the refinement of the intellectual tastes and 
the culture of the religious sensibilities. Both Jews and 
Gentiles believed in the deep moral degradation of the 
human race. The one reading in a Hebrew psalm, "Be- 
hold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother 
conceive me/' and the other dolefully singing with Ovid, 

" My reason this, my passion that persuades ; 
I see the right and I approve it too, 
Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue." 

Both believed that sin, like the shirt of Nessus, must 



JESUS EXULTANT. 



stick to a man till death should strip it off; that sin is nec- 
essary, and holiness is impossible to mortals. This was 
deadening every aspiration after purity and paralyzing 
every effort of men to lift themselves and others God- 
ward. How strong, think you, is the missionary spirit in 
the bosoms of western frontiersmen and how earnest will 
be their efforts to convert the red men while they believe 
the slogan, "There are no good Indians but dead ones"? 
How strongly will men aspire after present likeness to 
God, whose creed is that there are no holy people on 
earth but those in the graveyard? This dreadful creed 
was producing a universal moral paralysis when Jesus 
went forth from Nazareth to the task of making a holy 
race out of those degenerate offspring of Adam whose 
very blood was poisoned with the virus of hereditary evil. 
He was not discouraged, because he knew that where sin 
abounds he could open the flood-gates of God's more 
abounding grace to wash away not only guilt but the 
very inborn seed of sin. 

Again, the world up to the birth of this peasant youth 
had been a stupendous moral failure, utterly falling short 
of the design of its Creator, not because man was without 
a knowledge of his duty, but because there was an un- 
bridged chasm between knowledge and right moral action. 
If you had taken a vagabond out of the slums of Anti- 
och or Corinth and requested him to write out his moral 
creed, he would immediately have set down a list of the 
sublimest moral principles, with no more thought of liv- 
ing up to them than he had of flying to the moon. His 
knowledge would have afforded no motive to holy living. 
To produce this some wholly new agency more effective 



10 JESUS EXULTANT. 

than anything yet known must be employed to overcome 
this dreadful "bent to sinning." 

Out upon such a world our Hebrew Reformer looked 
from the hilltop of Nazareth and calmly prepared for its 
moral conquest. In imagination I hear him thus solilo- 
quize: My spirit, the breath of purity and love, shall 
change this vast scene of suffering and sin into an Eden 
of delight. Before my simple words idols hoary with 
antiquity and leprous with vileness shall hie to the bats 
and the moles; cast-iron superstitions which have been a 
nightmare on human hearts for thousands of years shall 
slink away before the light of my evangel. The sancti- 
fying agent whom I w T ill send forth shall disinfect the 
pollutions of the whole world. The humane spirit of 
my gospel shall break the fetters of the slave; chain up 
the dogs of war that they no more hunt and devour men ; 
shall climb the ivory steps of thrones, steal into senates 
and soften legislation; shall exhale its fragrance in the 
world's schools and purify those fountains of influence; 
shall silently, but surely, clarify the world's literature 
and chasten art, and shall liberate music and all the 
daughters of song from their long captivity to the twin 
tyrannies of lust and wine, and turn all their bacchanal 
orgies into holy hallelujahs. That downward trend of 
human nature I will change into an upward tendency, 
through the Holy Spirit whom I will send down from 
the heaven to which I will ascend. 

The magnitude of this work did not appall the heart 
of the young carpenter, though as he surveyed the com- 
ing race of men he saw a sight more sickening than Mil- 
ton represents Adam as seeing when on a mount of 



JESUS EXULTANT. 11 

vision he saw the congregated crimes and woes of his 
posterity all along the ages spread out on the plain be- 
low in one ghastly panorama, and Adam, though not of 
woman born, could not but weep at the sight of his off- 
spring sinning and suffering as a sequence of his own 
transgression. Jesus with confidence predicts his own 
success in his single-handed contest with the ingrained 
depravity of humanity, though well he knew that every 
radical reformer had fallen before the malice of those 
whom he would bless: Socrates, the zealous city mis- 
sionary of Athens, toiling for the moral uplifting of the 
young men, compelled on charge of religious non-con- 
formity to drink the hemlock; and Hebrew prophets, for 
their fidelity to Jehovah, stoned or sawn asunder, desti- 
tute, afflicted, tormented. His heart did not fail nor his 
cheek blanch, though well he knew that 

" Right had been forever on the scaffold, 
And wrong forever on the throne." 

Nor was he disheartened though, in his prospective 
view of his own life, a bloody cross confronted him but 
three years distant. 

Strange young man! Did his friends put him in a 
strait- jacket, or thrust him into the cell of the lunatic? 
It is not wonderful that none understood him, that few 
believed, that many cried out madness, and that his own 
brothers distrusted his mission, if not his sanity. But 
chimerical as appeared his avowed project, he was per- 
fectly sane. For he has accomplished enough already 
to prove his ability to accomplish the entire scheme of 
moral conquest. Jesus Christ rules so much of the 
world to-day as to remove all ground for doubt that he 



12 



JESUS EXULTANT. 



will rule the whole at last. The eternities are his. If it 
is necessary the Son of God can take a million years to 
lift up the submerged nations, as he took countless ages 
to elevate the submerged continents. "He shall not 
fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the 
earth." Oh! what a boon to the world, what a benefaction 
above all price is one truly courageous soul possessing un- 
faltering faith in the final triumph of goodness, amid 
the present almost universal prevalence of iniquity. 
How that steady and strong soul tones up my fainting 
spirit! As if in vital connection with the pulses of that 
mighty heart mine cease their tremulous palpitations 
and beat with a steadier, stronger throb. Because he is 
confident we also believe and take heart. 

Having outlined the stupendous work proposed by 
Jesus and the appalling discouragements and difficulties, 
we now inquire into the grounds of that marvellous con- 
fidence which from the very first dwelt in his bosom. 
Was it egotism and mere self-conceit? Was it a boast 
groundless and empty? Nay. It was a confidence 
which knows that it stands not on the sand, but on the 
everlasting granite of reality. What, then, are the 
grounds of tins assurance? We have disclaimed for him 
reliance on the sword and trust in money and political 
combinations, and the prestige of royal blood, and the 
influence of the press, and oratory and philosophy, in 
fact, all the ordinary means of attaining dominance over 
human affairs. 

1. No small ground of confidence was the knowledge 
that death would not end his labors in the world. We 
are all more or less disheartened by the prospect of death 



JESUS EXULTANT. 13 

near at hand. We cannot with the highest confidence 
enter upon any great enterprise the accomplishment of 
which involves a period longer than the average of hu- 
man life. The thought of death naturally dampens ambi- 
tion and moderates greed in reflective minds. It chastens 
eagerness for fame to know that — 

" The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
Await alike the inevitable hour : — 
The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 

But there could be no such limitation to the enterprise 
to which Christ put his hand. Death was no obstacle to 
his purpose to attain the dominion of the world. He 
knew that he would rise on the third day, that death had 
no power over him, that the tomb could not contain 
his body and that hades could not confine his spirit when 
he should will to come forth in triumph. He knew that 
death instead of retarding would hasten the universal es- 
tablishment of his kingdom; that his blood shed as an 
atonement for sin would shake the very foundations of 
Satan's dominion over human hearts, and that his resur- 
rection, in exact fulfilment of his prediction, would for- 
tify his gospel and make its evidences as absolutely im- 
movable as the pillars of Jehovah's throne. If Satan in- 
spired the crucifixion of the Son of God, he never so com- 
pletely overshot his mark and so fatally wounded his own 
cause. For he put into the hand of Jesus a sword with 
which he will conquer the world, destroy the works of 
the devil, and bring in his own everlasting kingdom. 
The empty tomb of Jesus is an argument which infidelity 
cannot answer. The earth contains the bones of every 



14 JESUS EXULTANT. 

other great religious founder. Confucius's tomb is vis- 
ited in China; Zoroaster, the father of the fire-worship- 
pers, lies buried in Persia. The dust of Buddha, the 
Hindoo sage, venerated by 470,000,000 votaries, is 
mingling with the soil of India. In Mecca the cofhn en- 
closing the ashes of the false prophet is surrounded daily 
by dusty pilgrims, while the body of Abraham is en- 
tombed at Hebron. But who will show us a bone of 
Jesus Christ? To what spot shall we journey to pay 
homage to his dissolving dust? Not to the rock-hewn 
tomb in Jerusalem where Joseph of Arimathsea ten- 
derly laid him. "Come and see. He is not here. He is 
risen. Behold the place where the Lord lay." Not a 
bone of his will ever be dug up, not a particle of his dust 
cleaves to our planet as it sweeps around the sun. The 
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. All are pro- 
spectively conquered in his victory over death at the 
very beginning of the battle. 

2. Another element of confidence was Christ's 
knowledge that he has an ally in every human bosom. 
Man is depraved, earthly, sensual, and sometimes devil- 
ish, but he is not a demon hopelessly fixed in his badness. 
He has a reason which recognizes the truth. He has a 
conscience which hears the voice of duty. He has sen- 
sibilities capable of admiring the moral beauty of Christ, 
and a free will which has the gracious ability to elect his 
yoke. Yea, even the worst of men have an aesthetic de- 
light in the law of God while rejecting its sway. 
Though carnal and sold on the auction block to sin, the 
despot, the worst man approves God's law as holy, just 
and good. All he needs is motive power. This Christ 



JESUS EXULTANT. 15 

can supply. He is the dispenser of God's grace. By 
becoming a man he put himself into the circle of human 
sympathies. He knows to what part of our fallen nature 
he can appeal and awaken a favorable response. There 
is a chord which, if touched by the divine hand, will yield 
the plaintive melody of penitence and the joyful sound 
of thanksgiving. The adaptation of the gospel to meet 
the approval of the conscience, to satisfy the de- 
mands of the intellect and to fill the cravings of the 
affections, made it morally certain before Jesus Christ 
opened his lips on the Mount of Beatitudes that he 
would conquer the rebellious race at last. For no more 
surely is the ear adapted to sounds and the eye to light 
than the soul is adapted to feel the power of Christian 
suasives. Obedience to Christ commends itself to every 
man's conscience. There is a door to every heart, and 
our Saviour knows the path to that door. He can awaken 
the sleeper within by a knock too gentle to destroy free- 
dom. He comes with no sledge hammer. "When I am 
lifted I will draw [not drag] all men unto me." The 
drawings of Christ are universal, but not irresistible. 
The story of the cross has conquered millions of 
hearts, and it is ever new. It thaws the icy affec- 
tions of the Greenlander, and awakens the stupid 
Hottentot, while it overwhelms with wonder the 
man of science who can measure the distances of the 
fixed stars, weigh the planets, and unbraid a ray of light. 
Thank God, there is hope for every man, for there is 
within him a traitor to Satan and an ally to Christ. The ear 
of conscience may be gained and the man may be drawn 
to the embrace of his Eedeemer. Were it not so I would 



16 JESUS EXULTANT. 

not dare to enter the pulpit again to plead with the im- 
penitent. Were it not so Jesus would have fainted at 
the first glance at a race hopelessly submerged in sin. 
He would have shunned the fruitless agony of Geth- 
semane and the useless cross on Calvary, and he would 
even now, on his mediatorial throne, cease his interces- 
sory prayers and let the hopeless world of sinners lie for- 
ever in the ruin to which they have sunk. 

3. Another ground of Christ's confidence is the new 
weapon with which the battle against sin is to be fought 
and victory won. This is not an invention for the wholesale 
slaughter of men, like a breech-loading gun, but a spir- 
itual instrument of the highest efficiency never before 
wielded on the earth. It is a sinless and perfect human 
character rising in full-orbed splendor upon a world of 
darkness. There is a power in example transcending the 
suasiveness of tongues. The author of "Paradise Lost" 
very appropriately represents Satan as trembling when, 
from the top of Eden's walls, he first beheld a sinless man 
and "felt how awful goodness is." A holy man is a liv- 
ing rebuke to all unholiness. Unimpeachable integrity 
is a battery which can never be successfully assaulted. 
Argument may be repelled by superior logic, but holy 
character is absolutely unanswerable. The perfect son 
of man reveals by contrast the imperfections of all fallen 
beings who gaze upon him. One instance of a holy hu- 
manity is a demonstration of its attainability and a 
prophecy of its possible universality. The sinless Jesus 
walks forth upon the earth an incarnate rebuke to sin, 
in the fourfold record of his life. "Which of you con- 
vinceth me of sin?" Enoch, Moses, Job and Daniel had 



JESUS EXULTANT. 17 

flaws which weakened their characters and detracted 
from their rebuking power. But, lo, here conies forth 
from Nazareth to the gaze of the universe and to the sur- 
prise of men an absolutely sinless man, the joy of God, 
the wonder of angels and the envy of demons. Holiness 
on the earth is now and henceforth a possibility. Moral 
perfection is no longer ideal. It is real. From this rock 
all the assaults of Satan rebound, pouring confusion upon 
the falsifier. What follows? If stainless purity whiter 
than snow is possible in one dweller in a house of clay, it 
is possible in all, else Christ's example instead of being 
a stairway to heaven is a millstone to sink us in despair. 
A model impossible to imitate tantalizes and paralyzes. 
Possibility in all is the ground of obligation in all. "Be 
ye yourselves holy in all manner of living; for I am 
holy."* 

Hence the character of Jesus is an unconquerable ag- 
gressive power. The mythic shield of Minerva had on it 
the head of Gorgon so frightful that its very terrors 
turned into stone all who looked at it; but the photo- 
graph of Jesus on the gospel page is so lovely that it 
changes from stone to flesh all who gaze intently upon 
it. "But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a 
mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the 
same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord 
the Spirit."! 

4. The agencies at Christ's command are another 
ground of assurance. It was the boast of Franklin that 
he could draw the lightning down from the clouds, and 

*X Peter i. 15, 16, R. V. t'2 Cor. iii. 18, R. V. 



18 JESUS EXULTANT. 

of Professor Morse that he could make it the world's 
news carrier, and of Cyrus Field that he could use it as 
a thread beneath the oceans for weaving the nations to- 
gether; and of other inventors that they could make it 
light our streets and draw and warm our cars. It is a 
worthy boast to be able to harness invisible powers and 
make them toil for human weal. But Christ relied on a 
mightier invisible agency for the dethronement of spirit- 
ual wickedness, for the procurement of which he went 
down into the tomb and thence mounted the skies to 
send down the Pentecostal gift to raise dead souls to life 
and to stamp them with his perfect holiness. To his 
tearful disciples he said, "I will send the Comforter," 
the spiritual transformer. By him penitents are born 
anew and believers are sanctified wholly. He can de- 
stroy the propensity to sin, root and branch, and make 
spotless holiness a reality in living men without the aid 
of death or of purgatorial fires. After his ascension the 
Son of God poured out the Spirit of promise, the per- 
sonal Paraclete, to abide permanently in believers, as 
their present and perfect sanctifier. Hence his serene 
confidence in the ultimate triumph of his kingdom. 
When William Carey, the pioneer Baptist missionary, 
went to India to preach Christ to the Hindoos, he called 
at the office of an English judge and unfolded his plan 
of evangelization, expressing his unwavering faith in the 
conversion of India. The judge impatiently heard him 
and then replied, "I advise you, young man, to return to 
England. You have undertaken an impossible enter- 
prise. You cannot convert the Hindoos. They have a 
religion older than Christianity, interwoven with all their ; 



JESUS EXULTANT. 19 

social and industrial life, separating them into indestruc- 
tible castes. They have sacred books of the highest an- 
tiquity, learned priests, magnificent temples, and the 
holy Ganges in which from time immemorial they have 
washed away their sins." Carey calmly replied, "Sir, I 
am not attempting to do this work alone. I rely on the 
cooperation of the Holy Spirit to break down these bar- 
riers and soften these hearts." "Well, well," rejoined 
the judge, "if you can connect God Almighty with your 
project, I have nothing more to say against it." Jesus 
Christ can link the omnipotent God with his scheme of 
world-wide conquest. "All power is given unto me in 
heaven and in earth." 

Here a class of mistaken Christians would relax their 
efforts and lie down and rest. Because God is in Christ 
reconciling the world unto himself, they imagine that 
success is certain without human aid. They reason thus : 
The agency of the Spirit is universal. He visits all souls. 
He reproves the Hindoos and the Hottentots as well as 
the New Englanders. All are on salvable ground. Why, 
then, should I give my money or my children, or why 
should I go myself to heathen lands? This is a super- 
fluous sacrifice. Christ will succeed because it is in 
prophecy and in the divine decree. 

This sophistry cuts the sinews of effort and dries up 
the streams of gold flowing into missionary treasuries. 
It is true that the Spirit reproves the world. He passes 
by no human soul, however degraded by sin. With 
every one he debates the high themes of duty and of 
destiny. He wages war against every one's sins. But his 
success depends largely on his weapons. The sword of 



20 JESUS EXULTANT, 

the Spirit is the Word of God. It is not his office, since 
the New Testament was completed, to reveal religious 
truth, but rather to apply and vitalize truth already re- 
vealed to a few to be by them communicated to all. Here 
comes in the grand incentive to Christian propagandism 
through sermons, schools, books, tracts, and home and 
foreign missions, and personal testimony and effort 
everywhere and with everybody, to shed the light of 
gospel truth upon their minds and thus put the sword 
into the hand of the Spirit for his most effective work. 
He is ready for aggression upon all the regions of sin. 
At this point the purpose of Christ will fail unless there 
is something in his religion which secures the hearty co- 
operation of human agency. 

5. Here we come to another interesting ground of 
confidence in the universal spread of Christ's reign over 
the nations. The requisite human agents will not be 
wanting. It is of the very genius of Christianity to mul- 
tiply them. Jesus had a solid basis for his reliance on 
men in his conquest of men, in the nature of the Spirit's 
regenerating work. This is the inspiration of fervent 
love to God and to men created in his image. This will 
secure self-sacrificing activity for the salvation of others. 
This makes successful Sunday-school teachers. This 
calls young men from the plough and shop to the pulpit, 
and crowds the decks of departing steamers with volun- 
teer missionaries to all pagan lands. The gospel of 
Christ generates its own propagators. There is no need 
of employing cohorts of angels. How wonderful that 
Christ's conquered foes are his only agents for further 
conquests! No general suppressing a rebellion expects 



JESUS EXULTANT. 21 

to strengthen his army by enlisting the conquered ene- 
mies of his country. When General Sherman cut him- 
self off from his base of supplies and of recruits in his 
famous march through Georgia to the sea he did not ex- 
pect conquered Confederates to wheel into line with the 
Federals and fight valiantly for the cause which they 
were just now destroying. But King Jesus does the 
very thing which a worldly king would regard as su- 
preme folly. The immediate enlistment of conquered 
enemies is one of the fundamental and indispensable 
principles on which he conducts his holy war. He ex- 
pects every prisoner of war, the moment that he lays 
down his arms, to take the oath of allegiance, to seize the 
sword of the Spirit, and to fight bravely for the enthrone- 
ment of his conquerer. Jesus conquers by love. His 
victory is the inspiration of love to the victor. The first 
impulse of every truly regenerated soul is to invite oth- 
ers to submit to Jesus also. If this impulse declines it is 
because loyalty to him wavers and love has grown cold. 
Aggressive activity in bidding others to the feast of 
divine love is indispensable to genuine discipleship to 
Christ. When General William Booth, in the slums of 
London, first lifted the banner of his Salvation Army 
with its significant emblem, a Blood and Fire," and an- 
nounced his purpose to Christianize the submerged tenth 
of that great city and convert the outcasts of all the na- 
tions, he was asked, "Where will you get your preach- 
ers?" In sublime trust in the transforming power of the 
gospel of Christ, pointing to a row of low groggeries, he 
replied, "Out of these dramshops." 

The gospel's self-perpetuating power is in exact pro- 



22 JESUS EXULTANT. 

portion to the degree of love in the hearts of Christ's 
disciples. Love is the warm atmosphere in which the 
missionary spirit is born. When Samuel Mills, one of 
the five young men whose self -consecration to the evan- 
gelization of India occasioned the formation of the Amer- 
ican Board, was asked by his father what put it into his 
head to become a missionary, he answered, "Father, it 
was your prayers at the family altar." 

The confidence of our risen Lord Jesus in the suffi- 
ciency of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of consecrated 
men and women to evangelize all nations is in striking 
contrast with the despair of some good men in modern 
times in view of the slow advance of the gospel and the 
gigantic obstacles which still obstruct its progress. Such 
persons, undervaluing the agencies now active, and for- 
getful of their long probable future on the earth, boldly 
declare that the church under the dispensation of the 
Spirit is a stupendous failure, and that the glorified 
Christ will soon descend, not to judge the whole race of 
men and to wind up human probation, but to subdue his 
foes, not by love evinced by self-sacrifice, as hitherto, but 
by sheer almightiness terrorizing the stubborn souls 
which would not yield to the suasives of love divine and 
of saving truth applied by the Holy Spirit. How does 
this faintheartedness of eclipsed faith contrast with the 
courage and steadiness of the Son of God! While some 
of his disciples lose heart and despair paralyzes their sin- 
ews, he bids us go bravely forward to certain victory. 
He knows that greater Luthers will arise to challenge 
hoary errors; that new Wesleys will come forth in future 
generations to breathe spiritual life into dead churches 



JESUS EXULTANT. 23 

and to lift Christendom to the summits of holy charac- 
ter; that poets sweeter than Watts and Charles Wesley 
will touch the sacred lyre ; that mightier Whiteflelds will 
fly over the continents and oceans, like the angel of the 
Apocalypse, preaching with overwhelming power. He 
sees future David Livingstones and William Taylors ex- 
ploring the last dark corners of the world to hunt up the 
last pagan soul and to lead him to Christ. He sees roll- 
ing down the future ages tidal waves of revival power 
drowning out unbelief, purging our great cities, sweep- 
ing away the saloon and the brothel and all other foun- 
tains of crime. Christianity is not a spent shot moving 
against the enemy's works. 

6. Another reason why Christ is not discouraged is 
found in the foreseen fact that the world will always be 
ruled in the interest of his kingdom. "For he is head 
over all things unto his church." The rise and fall of 
empires alike will impel the chariot of King Jesus on- 
ward. The results of all modern wars have been over- 
ruled for the breaking down of barriers to the extension 
of Christ's kingdom. If war is to lift its horrid front in 
the future, the outcome will be the humiliation of bar- 
barism, the opening of larger missionary fields, and the 
better protection of the messengers of salvation. Study 
the political history of the world since on the day of 
Pentecost the risen Christ "opened the kingdom of 
heaven to all believers," and see how great events have 
wonderfully conspired to enthrone him over the nations. 
Well may Mr. George Bancroft, a secular historian, 
say, "I find the name of Jesus Christ written at the top 
of every page of modern history." 






24 JESUS EXULTANT. 

How comes it that Bible-reading nations are in the 
ascendant over all the world to-day — their commerce 
steaming over every sea, their power acknowledged by 
Turks and all other barbarians that roam the land and 
the wave, their navies thundering along every coast? 
Our Lord Jesus is at the world's helm is the sufficient 
answer, and he is no pessimist. 

After reviewing these grounds of Christ's confidence 
let us now inquire what effect should his calm assurance 
have on his disciples who are still in the midst of the 
battle. Should it not be the antidote for that bane of 
Christian effort, discouragement because of small results? 
Because whole nations have not been evangelized within 
the memory of living men, some people are ready to give 
up the cause of despair. Such people need the tonic of 
a stronger faith arising from an upward look at the glori- 
fied Head of the Church. Calmly he stands 

" Out of whose hand 
The centuries roll like grains of sand," 

offering his ceaseless intercessory prayer with unfaltering 
faith in his final success, though idolatries cast their dark 
shadows across the continents, and semi-paganism, bap- 
tized in the name of Christ, buries the simple gospel be- 
neath a mass of traditions, hiding his saving power, and 
teaching ignorant souls to offer ten prayers to Mary to 
one to the Son of God. Yet he does not lose heart. For 
this reason we should not. Hear his words, "Be of good 
cheer; I have overcome." 

Remember how it was in the darkest day of our 
nation's recent struggle to keep the Union founded by 
Washington from being blotted out forever. Many 



JESUS EXULTANT. 25 

faint-hearted patriots were inclined to allow the dismem- 
berment of the Republic, and others were despondently 
sighing, "We cannot conquer eleven seceding sovereign 
States/' and all foreign nations reechoed the doleful cry. 
The Federal credit was rapidly falling and Confederate 
bonds were selling at a higher price in London than the 
United States' securities, and gold was more than 250 
per cent premium, and reverses attended our army of the 
Potomac, and our brave boys in blue were starving in 
Southern prisons, and our great commercial metropolis 
was in the hands of a bloody mob resisting the draft by 
plundering houses, burning negro orphanages and ter- 
rorizing the citizens. How was the faith of the loyal 
people kept from a total collapse? Next to trust in God 
and the justice of our cause, the confidence of the mass 
of the people hung upon their leaders. Had Lincoln 
and Grant, Stanton and Chase, these four men, in the 
year 1864 issued a statement that the Federal cause was 
a hopeless failure, their despair would have palsied the 
hands of the loyal people, and the noblest and freest na- 
tion beneath the sun would have been rent asunder. But 
under the Spirit of our God, the pluck of our leaders, 
those providential men, saved our Republic by toning 
up the hearts of the masses who were loyal to the old 
flag. Their words of cheer in those gloomy days fell on 
fainting patriots and held them back from the slough of 
despond, the gulf of ruin. So, my Christian friends, in 
the great war against sin and all the powers of darkness 
let us keep near our divine Captain, and hear his words 
of cheer, and catch the hopefulness which animates him 
who "shall not fail nor be discouraged till he has set judg- 



26 JESUS EXULTANT. 

ment in the earth." Amid the convulsions of empires, 
the downfall of nations, and the apparent fluctuations of 
his kingdom, the great spiritual temple is noiselessly go- 
ing up, stone upon stone. The Master Builder looks 
calmly through the storms and tempests which drive 
away the workmen and seemingly retard the work. Yet 
the sublime edifice is to the omniscient eye always rising 
till the cap-stone shall be brought forth with shoutings, 
and Jesus, looking from the skies, shall see of the travail 
of his soul and be satisfied with the full realization of his 
purpose. 

Beloved, I have come to you uttering no doleful words 
of despair, but rather of hope and assurance. Yours is 
the exceedingly great privilege of enlisting in a cause 
destined to succeed. The banner of the cross will never 
be folded up and laid aside on the shelf of the antiquary 
labelled, "The Lost Cause." Ye are called to fight un- 
der a captain whose confidence never falters, whose cour- 
age was never shaken, and whose triumph over the ser- 
ried ranks of foes is more certain than to-morrow's sun- 
rise. At his coming coronation he will not be ashamed 
to acknowledge as his brethren all who have valiantly 
stood by his banner amid the smoke of the battle. Be 
heroic in the service. Be discouraged by no obstacle. 
Be daunted by no foe. Preach a large gospel, adequate 
to man's deepest needs, the good news of complete deliv- 
erance from sin. Be aggressive. Panoplied of God go 
forth and bring in trains of captive enemies transformed 
into friends whom Christ, the great Captain, will soon 
lead through the lifted gates in glorious triumph. You 
are to share his glory. "The glory which thou hast given 



JESUS EXULTANT. 27 

me, O Father, I have given them." "He that overcom- 
eth shall sit with me in my throne, even as I also over- 
came, and am set down with my Father in his throne." 
Our subject has a national as well as a personal appli- 
cation. In every war there is a decisive battle, and in 
every battle a critical moment, a turning point, called by 
the Greeks rpo^. It would seem that God has chosen the 
United States as the great battlefield of the world, and 
the close of the nineteenth century as the critical hour 
in the momentous contest between Christ and Apollyon, 
the commander-in-chief of the hosts of darkness. We 
need to be on our guard against political pessimism to 
which we are specially liable because of the disposition 
of politicians to beslime one another. It is true that 
there are evils in our glorious Republic which threaten 
its life. But there is a hopeful outlook. One of the 
greatest perils has recently disappeared. The crime of 
human chattelism was abolished not less by the rising 
tide of the Christian world's moral condemnation than 
by the exigency of the Union. There is a power which 
can mitigate, subdue and finally extinguish the haughty 
spirit of caste and the bitter race hatreds which disturb 
our national peace and disfigure our Christian civiliza- 
tion. That power is love to God and man. This love is 
shed abroad in believing hearts by the Holy Spirit sent 
down from heaven by our glorified Redeemer. The 
concluding clause from which our motto in Isaiah 
is taken is this, "And the isles shall wait for his law." 
The recent victories of our navies, as marvellous as any 
in Old Testament history, not excepting Joshua's dis- 
comfiture of the Amorites at Gibeon, have placed the 



28 JESUS EXULTANT. 

last waiting islands where the gospel can elevate and save 
their degraded, benighted and oppressed millions. May 
the future historian of our Republic never have to record 
that American Christians failed and became discouraged 
in view of the Herculean task providentially laid upon 
us in the victories of Manila and Santiago. Rather let 
us rejoice because the Head of the church, our ascended 
Christ, has entrusted us with this great responsibility, 
and honored us by making our nation a prominent 
instrument for setting judgment in the earth and 
enthroning his law over the long-waiting isles. It is 
true that our free institutions may be subverted' by two 
millions of voters unable to read their ballots. But we 
have the light by which this appalling ignorance may be 
dispelled, the light of gospel truth, an open Bible, and 
millions eager to read and thousands impatient to put 
into their hands the spelling-book, the key of all knowl- 
edge, and the Bible, the safeguard of all freedom. An 
African college president making the most highly praised 
address at the opening of the great Southern Exposition 
at Atlanta is the leader of a procession of respected, 
learned and eloquent Africans to whom future genera- 
tions of white men and women will listen with pleasure 
and patriotic pride. A pure gospel fearlessly preached 
through all our country north, south, east and west, will 
unify our people and cement our Union till the end of 
the world. There are in our metropolitan city indica- 
tions that the reign of King Alcohol over law and law- 
makers is to come to an eternal end. It cannot endure 
the faithful preaching of the gospel of purity and tem- 
perance by the teacher in the public school, by the 



JESUS EXULTANT. 29 

parent at home, and by men and women on the platform 
and in the pulpit. The cause has already made rapid 
strides over vast areas of our country, especially over the 
Southern States. It is destined to be universal. A grati- 
fying and significant token of this is the attitude of the 
Eoman Catholic Church towards this baleful traffic in 
intoxicants. This completes the solidarity of the organic 
Christianity of America against this iniquity. 

To Christianity alone do we confidently look for the 
cure of customs and practices which cause the decay of 
the family — the social evil, club life and easy divorce. 
These will. wither and die as the spirit of Christ more and 
more purifies the individual and sanctifies society. 

In conclusion we remark that he who never felt the 
first tremor of fear or shade of doubt is more than a 
man. It is human to feel despondency at times. The 
wisest and holiest of men have sometimes felt despair 
chilling their enthusiasm and paralyzing their strength. 
The secret of Christ's calm self-reliance and unshaken 
assurance of success is that he is God manifested in the 
flesh, having all the resources of omnipotence for his 
work and the lifetime of the eternal Father for its com- 
pletion. ~No other theory of his person is a satisfactory 
explanation of his unique and unfaltering hopefulness. 

" Jesus is God ! If on the earth 
This blessed faith decays, 
More tender should our love become, 

More plentiful our praise. 
We are not angels, but we may- 
Down in earth's corners kneel, 
And multiply sweet acts of love, 
Aud murmur what we feel." 



30 JESUS EXULTANT. 

CHAPTEK II. 

WESLEY EXPECTANT. 

Whe^ John Wesley took for his motto, "The world is 
my parish," he was impelled by the expectation that the 
whole world would be evangelized and Christ's kingdom 
would be completed before his coming to judge the 
whole human family. But he is claimed by those who 
insist that Christ's second coming will be to begin his 
kingdom, and to complete it by his visible reign during 
a thousand years. This brings us to the question, Was 
Wesley a premillennialist ? 

We answer yes, and no. There is a great variety of 
chiliasts — a term preferable for brevity. Hardly any 
two agree in their speculations. But one question di- 
vides them all into two distinct and antagonistic groups: 
"Is Christ's kingdom completed before his second ad- 
vent?" The first group answers, "Yes;" the second 
says, "~No, the kingdom is set up after Christ's descent 
and is completed by the conversion of the Jews first and 
the ingathering of hosts of Gentiles through the preach- 
ing of Christian Jews. The present dispensation was 
not designed to disciple all nations, but to preach the 
gospel for a witness, and to gather Christ's bride, an 
elect number who are to be associate judges and joint 
rulers with him a thousand years on the earth. The 
world is rapidly sinking into moral ruin which the 
church, even when filled with the Holy Spirit, is unable 



WESLEY EXPECTANT. 31 

to save. The spectacular descent and coronation of 
Christ on David's throne in Jerusalem, a human form 
encompassed by the splendors of divine majesty, chain- 
ing and imprisoning Satan and awing wicked men, is the 
only hope of the church." The second group includes 
nearly all the modern chiliasts, who are further charac- 
terized by a denial of the simultaneous resurrection and 
the general judgment of mankind, the righteous and the 
wicked together. Our first group insists that the world 
is growing better under the spread of the gospel at home 
and in pagan lands, gradually leavening human society 
with the spirit of the pure, meek and holy Christ ; and is 
heroically planning for the conquest of the world 
through missionary agencies endowed with the Holy 
Ghost. 

To which of these groups did Wesley belong? You can 
easily classify him by asking the following questions: 
Did he preach the gospel for a witness merely, or for the 
conversion of the world of lost sinners ? Did he believe 
in unconditional election, who spent his life on one long 
battle against the five points of Calvinism, and altered 
Bishop Ken's doxology and taught his people to sing: 

" Praise God, from whom all blessings flow, 
Praise him, all creatures here below, 
Who would not have one sinner lost ; 
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost " ? 

Was Wesley a pessimist? Did he despair of the present 
dispensation? Was Methodism born of pessimism? Did 
Wesley believe and teach that one sinner would be for- 
given after Jesus ceased his mediatorial intercessions 
and mounted the judgment throne at his second coming? 



32 JESUS EXULTANT. 

All persons who have any knowledge of the life and 
writings of John Wesley will say "No" to every one of 
these questions. 

Let us examine his "Notes on the New Testament/' 
issued in 1754 and revised in 1787, four years before his 
death. Turn to his note on Acts iii. 21 — "until the 
times of restitution of all things: 11 "The apostle here 
comprises at once the whole course of the times of the 
New Testament between our Lord's ascension and his 
coming in glory. The most eminent of these are the 
apostolic age, and that of the spotless church, which will 
consist of all the Jews and Gentiles united, after all per- 
secutions and apostasies are at an end." Mark! This 
is before Christ's "coming in glory." This is in exact 
accord with the exegesis of Meyer: "Christ's reception 
into heaven continues until the moral corruption of the 
people of God is removed." There is no place for pes- 
simism here. If Wesley must be called a chiliast, as 
Tyerman, his biographer, says, he cannot be classed with 
the modern premillenarians who insist that the devil is 
engineering both the church and the world on the down 
grade with no brake on the wheel and an open draw- 
bridge just ahead, and the only rescue is the visible 
descent and coronation of Christ. 

Turn, now, to Kev. xx., the only millenarian chapter 
in the Bible, and that, too, in its most symbolic and enig- 
matic book. Wesley follows Bengel quite closely. The 
angel descending with the chain is not Christ. "The 
binding and loosing, the beginning and ending of the 
thousand years will not be known to men upon earth; 
the saints will reign with Christ a thousand years in 



WESLEY EXPECTANT. 33 

heaven" — not on the earth, after Satan has been bound 
another thousand years. From the invisible binding of 
Satan to the first visible appearance of Christ on the 
great white throne is two thousand years plus "a little 
season." We infer from the dreadful massacres of 100,- 
000 men in Armenia that Satan in the form of organized 
public hostility to Christ has not up to date been bound 
and put under lock and key, though the gospel's ad- 
vance has greatly diminished his power. According to 
Wesley's exegesis we are living more than two thousand 
years before the time when Christ will visibly appear on 
the earth. Why Wesley is called a premillennialist is 
a conundrum too hard for the student of Wesley's Notes. 
If his earlier writings, sermons and hymns contain any 
teaching which would be called chiliasm, it certainly 
cannot be of the modern sort which regards the present 
dispensation insufficient for the conquest of the world 
and extends human probation at least a thousand years 
after Christ's second coming. Even Tyerman, while 
calling Wesley "a millenarian," admits in reference to 
his "Notes on Rev. xx." and his sermons on "The Great 
Assize," "The General Deliverance," "The General 
Spread of the Gospel" and "The New Creation," that 
"there may be found in some of them statements scarcely 
harmonizing with the millenarian theory." 

The second coming of Christ, the general resurrection, 
the general judgment and the conflagration of the world 
are all so closely connected that it is impossible to wedge 
in the personal reign of Christ during a millennium. 
Hence even our first group have insuperable difficulties 
in harmonizing their theory with the Bible; while the 






34 JESUS EXULTANT. 

second, in teaching the salvation of sinners after the 
coming of Christ to judge the quick and the dead, main- 
tain the following paradoxes: Repentance, without the 
chief motive, the appointed day of future judgment, and 
repentance unto salvation after the intercession of Christ. 
the giver of repentance, has ceased; conviction of sin 
after the Divine Reprover has withdrawn from the 
world; the new birth after "the ascent of the Holy 
Ghost" (Dr. A. J. Gordon) ; assurance of sonship to God 
without the Spirit of adoption; public committal to 
Christ without water baptism and the teaching of his 
commands, both of which terminate at his second coming: 
growth in grace without its chief appointed means, the 
holy eucharist "showing forth the Lord's death till he 
come;" Christian maturity attainable by the study of an 
outgrown and exhausted Bible whose incentives to pu- 
rity, hope, fidelity, watchfulness and patience are all in 
view of "the coming of the Lord;" and, finally, salvation 
by sight, not by faith. 

It will be impossible to prove that Wesley ever en- 
dorsed such a jumble of contradictions. TTe do not hesi- 
tate to say that were he living to-day he would earnestly 
oppose the distracting theories of the modern prernil- 
lenarians, fitly represented by Dr. A. B. Simpson in a 
recent sermon: "Millions are giving and working to-day 
to get the world converted instead of working intelli- 
gently with Christ to gather out a people for his name, 
and to hasten his return and the inauguration of that 
day which will accomplish more for the conversion of 
the world than all the centuries of our ignorance and 
failure." The inference is natural that Congregation- 



WESLEY EXPECTANT. 35 

alists should cease to support the American Board in its 
divinely inspired purpose "to get the world converted/' 
that the Baptists should cease to prosecute the work be- 
gun by Dr. Judson, and that Methodists should abandon 
the glorious missionary scheme inspired by Wesley and 
initiated by Dr. Coke, and all quit their "ignorance and 
failure" to disciple all nations because of following these 
blind leaders, and should begin "to work intelligently" 
under the guidance of modern millennialism "to gather 
out a people for his name, to hasten Christ's return to 
accomplish more" by one stroke of his omnipotence for 
the conversion of the world than all the prayers, tears, 
toils and sacrifices of all the preceding centuries! 

When speculative vagaries are entertained as theories 
only, they may do little damage, but when they are put 
in practice they become ruinous. It is time that all our 
periodicals and all our pulpits should rebuke this spread- 
ing practical error. 

The intensely evangelistic career of Wesley and his 
faith in the gospel of Christ as sufficient for the con- 
quest of the whole world in the pentecostal dispensation 
have impressed his followers with an optimistic hopeful- 
ness. Hence Methodism opposes pessimism. 

The present age has witnessed the uprising of a nu- 
merous company of prophets of despair. They go about 
teaching the dismal doctrine that the world is growing 
worse and worse, that it is like a ship so badly wrecked 
that there is no hope of saving her under the manage- 
ment of her present captain and crew, and the best thing 
to be done is to rescue as many passengers as possible be- 
fore she goes entirely to pieces. This is Mr. Moody's 



36 JESUS EXULTANT. 

favorite illustration. In fact it is openly declared that 
the efforts of onr Missionary Boards to save the world 
are a waste of time and treasure winch might be spent 
more profitably in "preaching the gospel to all nations 
for a witness" and thus hasten the end of this ineffective 
dispensation of the Holy Spirit, and the inauguration of 
the personal reign of Christ on David's throne in Jeru- 
salem. Then Jews and Gentiles will be converted in a 
wholesale way, and the gospel will speedily dominate 
the whole world. Nearly all modern millenarians are 
pessimists. Many millenarians of former times were not 
of this type, but rather thorough believers in the possi- 
bility of the conquest of the world by the church vital- 
ized and energized bv the Divine Paraclete. The differ- 
ence between these two types of religious teachers arises 
from the fact that the one believes that the kingdom of 
Christ will begin after he comes, and the other that it 
will be completed before he comes. The latter will 
naturally bend all their energies to the glorious work of 
converting the world, believing that no sinners will be 
saved after Christ descends on his throne of judgment. 
Both John Wesley and John Fletcher had sympathy 
with this view. It presents nothing specially repugnant 
to Methodism, nothing to discourage, to paralyze and to 
cut the sinews of effort. It does not dishonor the Holy 
Spirit and discredit the church, as the other view is con- 
stantly doing. From the very beginning Methodism has 
magnified the Holy Ghost in his various offices. It is 
his immediate contact with the soul of the penitent be- 
liever which is the distinguishing doctrine of "Wesley. 
It is "the spirit of adoption" crying in the heart, "Abba, 



WESLEY EXPECTANT. 37 

Father," which is the key-note of Methodism. Her 
doctrine of entire sanctification magnifies the Pente- 
costal dispensation. The universality of the atonement 
demands the parallel doctrine of the universal effusion 
of the Spirit in the conviction and conditional regenera- 
tion of the world of mankind. Wesley would set no 
limits to the work of the Spirit. Were he living now 
his voice would be loud and vehement against the teach- 
ing that the mission of the Spirit was not designed to 
reach and conditionally save all men, but only a very 
few to constitute Christ's elect bride, and that after the 
failure of the Spirit to sway the mass of men Christward, 
he would himself awe them into submission by the 
majesty of his visible presence. No true followers of 
Wesley can have patience with such an utterance as 
gospel truth. These are some of our reflections as we 
read these disheartening words of a celebrated living 
evangelist, "that one reason for discouragement in mis- 
sions was that we were sometimes working on the basis 
of an expectation of converting the world in this dispen- 
sation, whereas the true Biblical hope authorized in the 
Word is only an outgathering from all nations of a people 
for God. If we expect the conversion of the world 
under this dispensation we have no authority for it in 
the Word, and the facts after 1900 years are utterly dis- 
appointing, whereas if we accept the other basis it is not 
only scriptural, but historical, for the facts bear us out, 
for that is exactly what God is doing." This means that 
he is not trying to save the whole world at present, but 
only a few to enjoy his favor as his bride, or to consti- 
tute his kingly cabinet, when his visible kingdom shall 



38 JESUS EXULTANT. 

be established by his coronation at Jerusalem. If there 
is no authority in the Word for the conversion of the 
world now, it is remarkable that scores of missionary so- 
cieties in Europe and America, after a diligent study of 
the Bible, should undertake this impossible enterprise on 
the basis of the command in the great commission, "Go 
ye and disciple all nations," and the promise, "Lo, I am 
with you alway, even unto the end of the world," or till 
I come again at the end of "the age" (R. V., margin), 

If this great charter on which all our missionary en- 
terprises are based teaches anything, it teaches the possi- 
bility of making disciples of all nations and it pledges 
the presence of Christ from that hour. That presence 
has been an invisible spiritual presence during nearly 
two thousand years. The inference is natural that Christ 
will remain invisible until the conquest of the world shall 
have been accomplished. This tallies exactly with Acts 
iii. 21, thus translated and annotated by Meyer, the cele- 
brated exegete, "Whom the heaven must receive until 
such times have come, in which all things will be re- 
stored. Before such times set in, Christ comes not from 
heaven, such times as shall precede the Parousia (pres- 
ence)." In Rom. xi. 25 Paul teaches that "when the 
totality of the Gentiles shall be converted, then the con- 
version of the Jews in their totality will also ensue. All 
this, therefore, before the Parousia, not by means of it" 
(Meyer). The parable of the leaven "hidden in three 
measures of meal till the whole was leavened" has always 
been understood as an assurance of the ultimate conquest 
of all nations by the assimilating power of the gospel 
through the affencv of the church vitalized and ener- 



WESLEY EXPECTANT. 39 

gized by the Holy Spirit. Who can endure the inter- 
pretation that "this parable teaches the progress of cor- 
ruption and deterioration" in. Christ's visible church be- 
fore the millennium? Yet some people outside of the 
insane asylum are thus interpreting this parable in the 
interest of pessimism. Such teachers of error are suc- 
cessful in gathering a large following in the evangelical 
churches, because of a widely prevailing desire to hear 
"the last things" preached in the modern pulpit. Since 
the topic of the second advent was wofully discredited 
in 1843 by William Miller's false midnight cry, "Behold 
the Bridegroom cometh," there has been a silence almost 
universal on this subject in American pulpits. The re- 
sult is an unrest on the part of the laity and a neglect of 
prophetic studies by the clergy so long continued as to 
disqualify them for the clear statement and defence of 
this line of truth. Their thoughts are chaotic, "without 
form and void, and darkness is upon the face of the 
deep." The Apocalypse is usually skipped in our schools 
of theology on the ground that nobody understands it. 
But a brighter day is dawning. Progressive men like 
Prof. Moses Stuart of Andover and Prof. Cowles of Ober- 
lin blazed the path which younger men like Dr. Har- 
per are widening and grading. The principle underly- 
ing this method is the application of the prophecy to the 
condition of the people to whom they were spoken, with 
an occasional forward glance, by way of encouragement, 
to the coming Messiah. All the imagery of Daniel ap- 
plies to events before Christ instead of the pope and 
Martin Luther, etc., many centuries distant. Prof. 
Cowles and Prof. Stuart show that the first eighteen 



40 JESUS EXULTANT. 

chapters of the Kevelation were designed for the encour- 
agement of the seven churches in view of the bloody 
persecutions during the ten years preceding the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem. The study of these modern exegetes, 
and especially of Dr. David Brown's masterly book, 
"The Second Advent" will bring order out of chaos and 
prepare the preacher to proclaim "the whole counsel of 
God." 



THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 41 

CHAPTEE III. 

THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH.* 

While God is the Creator of all the animal species 
that walk the earth and sport in the waters and fly in the 
air, he is the Father of rational and moral intelligences 
only. There is in the Holy Scriptures a restricted use 
of this term which must be carefully observed by all who 
would not fall into the deadly embrace of modern lib- 
eralism. Therefore in the interest of clearness of 
thought and in vindication of Christian truth, let us see 
first what we mean by the phrases "children of God," 
"sons of God" and "fatherhood of God." Strictly 
speaking, there is but one Person so linked to God by 
the genetic tie as to be "the Son of God." Hence he is 
"the only begotten Son." His being is grounded on the 
divine nature and is without time limits. He is the 
eternal Son. All other beings are grounded not on the 
nature of God, but upon his will, within time limits. 
They are creatures. The Divine Logos is never spoken of 
in the Holy Scriptures as a creature. God is never called 
the creator, but the Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
His sonship is unique and unshared by any other being 

*Eph. iii. 14. The Authorized Version, " whole family," instead of the Re- 
vised Version, " every family," or (margin) " every fatherhood," is strongly- 
sustained by " The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges," in harmony 
with chapter i. 10, where " all things in heaven and earth " are summed up 
in Christ as head, and with ii. 21, where "all the building," and not " each 
several building," is being completed for "a holy temple in the Lord." 
The Greek for " all " or " the whole " is the same in the last passage as it is in 
the motto of this chapter. 



42 JESUS EXULTANT. 

in the universe. Sonship to God, when applied to 
others, is figurative, as is also the fatherhood of God. 
What then is signified when an archangel or a man is 
called a son of God? There are several things in the 
relation of a human son to a father which might be the 
foundation of this metaphor, such as actual descent and 
possession of the identical nature- — which we have 
disclaimed for all creatures — or resemblance, imitation, 
obedience, love; qualities which may be summed up in 
the word likeness. This likeness is both natural and 
moral. The natural likeness of the human creature to 
the Creator consists in personality, intelligence, a moral 
sense, implying freedom and spirituality, i. e., spirit is 
the essential principle. The moral likeness exists when 
man possesses qualities like God's moral attributes, love, 
holiness, justice, wisdom and truth. But since the moral 
attributes eclipse the natural in excellence, likeness to 
God is predicated only of the possession of the moral 
qualities. Satan, though still like God in his natural 
attributes, is in no scriptural sense a son of God, because 
of his lack of the moral likeness. This is true of all un- 
regenerate men. They are not sons of God. Christ plain- 
ly told certain Jews that they were of their father the 
devil, because they had taken on his moral characteris- 
tics. The very tap-root of modern liberalism, universal 
salvation on the ground of the universal fatherhood of 
God, lies in a neglect of these scriptural distinctions, and 
in making the divine fatherhood natural and genetic, 
like human fatherhood, and in reasoning from the latter | 
to the former on this wise, "As no human father would be 
so cruel as to banish his child from his presence forever, 



THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 43 

much less will the divine Father." The fallacy lies in 
the assumption that a wicked man is a child of God, 
when he is really a child of Satan, because he has taken 
on his moral likeness. The writer of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews declares that certain men "are bastards, and not 
sons." It will not do to literalize or carnalize the terms 
"son" and "Father" in speaking of man's relation to 
God. For the outcome will be universal salvation on the 
ground of a fondling sentimentalism, an unholy love on 
the part of God, instead of moral likeness to him in holy 
character. Another error is expressed in the maxim, 
"Once in grace always in grace," based upon the idea, 
once a child always a child. Substitute "once like God, 
always like God," and the fallacy immediately stands 
out to view, for Satan once bore the moral image of his 
Maker. If sonship to God is pressed as a proof of the 
impossibility of becoming a son of perdition, why may 
not sonship to the devil be alleged to be an insuperable 
barrier to becoming a son of God? Are our positions 
sustained by the Bible? We reply that in the New Tes- 
tament sonship is the peculiar and distinguishing privi- 
lege of those who by faith receive Jesus Christ (John 
i. 12), and it consists in conformity to the image of the 
Son of God (Rom. viii. 29), and in no case do the 
words "sons of God," "children" and "Father" indi- 
cate anything but a spiritual likeness. Once, and once 
only, St. Paul, while preaching on Mars Hill, taking 
natural religion as his starting point, so as to stand on 
common ground with his pagan audience, speaks of the 
human race in the words of a Greek poet, as the offspring 
of God. Even here he is careful to limit the metaphor 



44 JESUS EXULTANT. 

to likeness in those natural characteristics in which men 
consciously differ from "gold or silver or stone." For they 
are conscious of freedom and moral accountability. In all 
the New Testament the terms "son/' "child/' "sonship," 
"adoption/' and "Father/' when applied to the relation 
of men to God, signify a spiritual likeness enstamped 
in outline by the Holy Spirit at that religious crisis fig- 
uratively called the new birth, and in completeness at 
the subsequent crisis of entire sanctification. Utterly 
foreign to the Gospels and the epistles and to apostolic 
preaching as reported in the Acts of the Apostles, is 
salvation on the ground of the natural fatherhood of 
God. Such a doctrine would "make the cross of Christ 
of none effect," because it would be needless in the 
scheme of salvation. 

If we turn to the Old Testament we shall find, in the 
words of Oehler, that "The meaning of the divine father- 
hood is not physical, as if God were called the Father of 
men because he gives them natural life and preserves 
them in it, but it is national. It denotes the relation of 
love and moral communion in which Jehovah has placed 
Israel to himself. This relation is quite unique; Jeho- 
vah is only the Father of the chosen people, not the 
Father of other nations." He says, "Israel is my son, 
even my first-born." The sonship of individuals, Oehler 
insists, was not the privilege of Old Testament saints, 
inasmuch, in my opinion, as the Holy Ghost, the sancti- 
fier, was not yet given. "The notion of divine sonship, 
as conferred upon the Hebrew nation in general, and 
then upon the theocratic king, nay, as affirmed in a special 
sense of the godlv, was still but a notion to be fully real- 



THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 45 

ized only in the future. The highest relation of inter- 
course between God and man, instituted by prophecy, 
does not attain to the eminence of that filial state inau- 
gurated by the E"ew Testament; for which reason Christ 
declares the greatest of the prophets to be less than the 
least in his kingdom." That individual sonship to God 
was a strange doctrine to the Jews, who were diligent 
students of their Scriptures, is seen in their indignant 
surprise that Jesus should dare call God his Father. 

Germane to this discussion is the exposition of 2 Pet. 
i. 4, "That ye may become partakers of the divine 
nature." "That is," says Dean Alford, "of that holiness, 
and truth, and love, and, in a word, perfection, which 
dwells in God ; and in you by dwelling in God." St. 
Peter calls that the divine nature which the divine Spirit 
effects in us, the image of God re-imprinted on us by 
the Third Person of the adorable Trinity. The only 
man who is literally a partaker of the divine nature is 
the God-man. All who truly believe in him partake, 
according to their finite capacity, of the moral attributes 
of the Father, and in this sense are sons. It is a re- 
markable fact that the Greek verb for "become" in this 
text is in the aorist tense. This is a puzzle to the scholar- 
ly dean, who cannot accept the Wesleyan doctrine of 
entire sanctiflcation instantaneously wrought by the 
Holy Spirit through faith. But in his explanation he 
makes an admission which implies all that Wesley ever 
taught on this line. He says, "The account of this usage 
of the aorist has not been anywhere, that I have seen, 
sufficiently given. It is untranslatable in most cases, 
but seems to serve in the Greek to express that the aim 



46 JESUS EXULTANT. 

was not the procedure, but the completion, of that in- 
dicated." If it is completed in the present life, there 
must be a definite instant in which the work is finished. 
This is all that Wesley ever contended for. 

Alford very properly quotes John xii. 36, "Believe 
on the light that ye may become sons of light," as an- 
other instance of a definite completion aimed at, and not 
a process. In tins case it is the new birth, the beginning 
of holiness, since the command is to the unregenerate 
Jews; but in 2 Pet. i. 4 the definite completion is entire 
sanctification, because Peter is addressing "them that 
have obtained a like precious faith with us," and is show- 
ing to them the full extent of salvation in "the exceeding 
great and precious promises " which "are given unto us." 
"Why Peter should change the first person to the second; 
the "us" to "ye," we know not, except it be a delicate 
intimation that he had become a partaker of the divine 
nature in a sense not applicable to those whom he ad- 
dressed, that he had obtained complete conformity to the 
image of the Son of God and was a full-grown son, while 
they were more or less carnal and were even still babes 
(1 Cor. iii. 1). St. John also makes two grades of son- 
ship (1 John ii. 13), "little children" who know the 
Father and cry, "Abba, Father;" and young men who 
are strong and have permanently conquered the evil one 
through the "Word of God abiding in them by the grip of 
faith which never relaxes its hold. Eeader, to which of 
these classes do you belong? If to neither, aspire to 
be born from above; if to the first class, be not content 
with Christian infancy, but aspire to the strength and 
victory of Christian manhood. Beware of old babehood. 
A dwarf awakens only pity and disgust. 



THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 47 

All who are born of the Spirit into this family of God 
on the earth may have a satisfactory, yea joyful, assur- 
ance of sonship expressed by the Greek word epignosis, 
a certain and perfect knowledge, not inferential, but in- 
tuitive, excluding all doubt and inspiring "joy unspeaka- 
ble.'' Should Gabriel write this assurance across the 
arches of the sky in letters of light, he would not inten- 
sify the confidence of the soul which hears the Spirit 
crying Abba, Father. For the senses, or rather our 
inferences from them, may be fallacious, but our intui- 
tions never can be. The new-born soul is endowed with 
a set of new intuitions. Spiritual things are spiritually 
discerned. Thus Christianity rests on self-evident truth. 
This foundation sceptics and agnostics cannot overturn. 
"Our Kock is not as their rock." Therefore we need not 
wait till the last day to find out whether we are sons of 
God, nor climb up to heaven to-day and look over the 
shoulder of the recording angel to see whether our names 
are inscribed in the book of life. There are safeguards 
set about this question on which destiny hinges. By a 
sort of double-entry arrangement one copy of God's fam- 
ily record is kept in heaven, and another in the heart of 
the believer. "The Spirit beareth witness with our spir- 
its, that we are the children of God." "He that is born of 
God hath the witness in himself." We do not deny that 
there are children born into the family of God with very 
weak eyes, who fail at first to read their title clear because 
of their feeble grasp of faith. They have astigmatic 
vision, with no distinctness of outline. They see men as 
trees walking. We have a word of good cheer for such. 
There is a hand which can touch those eyes- the second 



48 JESUS EXULTANT. 

time and bestow perfect vision. While we have strongly 
insisted on an immediate knowledge of our adoption by 
the new birth through the direct witness of the Spirit, 
we would also emphasize that mediate knowledge which 
is deduced from the marks of regeneration found in the 
Scriptures and their corresponding marks observed in 
ourselves. Hence it becomes us to be very familiar with 
those marks, the criteria of present character and of 
eternal destiny. 

I. All who belong to the family born of the Holy 
Spirit are characterized by an unmistaken family like- 
ness. It is a great law running from the top to the bot- 
tom of creation that like begets like. The sons of God, 
whether archangels who have stood before the throne 
from the day of their creation, or babes in Christ born 
into the kingdom to-day, all bear his moral linea- 
ments as incarnated in the model man, man at his climax, 
Jesus Christ our Lord. The natural features of this 
family vary almost infinitely. There are we know not 
how many orders of purely spiritual beings in heaven — 
angels, archangels, cherubim, seraphim, thrones, princi- 
palities, dominions and powers. We are ignorant of their 
specific differences. But in one particular they are all 
alike: they prefer holiness to sin, wearing the spotless 
robe of original righteousness, and loving their Creator 
with the full measure of their powers. Among the 
family on earth there are such minor differences as na- 
tionality, color, culture, social standing, intelligence and 
property; but they all wear the image of Christ en- 
stamped by the Holy Spirit. Their Christ-like cast of 
countenance makes them brothers to the archangels on 



THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 49 

their thrones. They wear the robe of an imparted and 
inwrought righteousness, washed in the laver of regen- 
eration, and afterwards whitened in the all-cleansing 
blood of the Lamb. The children of God are all charac- 
terized by holiness in its various degrees, from a new 
principle lodged by the Spirit in the penitent believer, 
like a spark dropped from the skies, to the full glow of 
pure, that is, perfect, love consuming all sin. A sin-lov- 
ing son of God is a contradiction. 

II. The next trait is a strong family affection. The 
ties of blood kindred are weak in comparison with the 
love that burns in the bosoms of the regenerate and sanc- 
tified. Jesus, our elder brother, evinced the superiority 
of spiritual kinship when he deliberately set his disciples 
above all the members of his mother's family, herself 
included: "He who doeth the will of my Father, the 
same is my mother, and sister, and brother." This love 
for those begotten of God will intensify till it absorbs and 
consumes all other loves. In the day of judgment the 
ties of spiritual affinity will be so strong that natural 
affection will shrivel into insignificance in contrast, so 
that the parting of families in that day of doom and 
their eternal separation will produce no distressing pang 
in the bosom all aglow with the flame of love to Christ 
and the brotherhood of the regenerate and sanctified. 
Natural affection is designed for the needs of the present 
life, but love as the fruit of the Spirit abides forever. 
This is a sufficient answer to the sentimentalists who 
assert that the punishment of an incorrigible sinner in 
hell would destroy the joys of heaven for the father, 
mother, brother, sister, husband or wife. Our affections 



50 JESUS EXULTANT. 

will be so purified as to delight only in the presence of 
the pure and to abhor the society of the vile and to ac- 
quiesce without a murmur in the sentence, "Depart, ye 
cursed." An illustration of this truth occurred in the 
life of Dr. Robert Breckenridge, an anti-slavery Presby- 
terian clergyman of Kentucky. When the Southern States 
attempted to secede from the Union, he stood by the old 
flag; but some of his sons sympathized with the rebellion. 
One son, who lived at a distance, had not made known 
to his patriot sire on which side he would be found in 
that contest which was soon to drench the Republic in 
blood. This son was seen one day dismounting at the 
gate of the old homestead. His father opened the front 
door and asked this question: "My son, do you come 
loyal or rebel? Answer, for no traitor to his country 
shall enter my house." The son replied, "Loyal," and 
was warmly welcomed. We all feel like swinging our 
hats and giving this heroic old man three times three 
cheers. Eow, if that indefinite sentiment called patriot- 
ism can become, with our approval, so intense as to over- 
shadow and even extinguish family ties, so that the 
patriot can rejoice in the victory of the Federal army, 
even though a rebel son lies dead on the battlefield, 
how far above all natural ties may the love of Christ 
and his kingdom lift us, so that we may applaud that act 
of his justice which punishes one of our own human 
kindred in arms against the King of kings ! To you who 
say that I am mocking at the tenderest sensibilities and 
rudely handling the most sacred and sensitive tendrils 
of the heart, let me commend the study of the words of 
the infallible teacher: "If any man love father or mother, i 



THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 51 

brother or sister, more than me, he is not worthy of me." 
"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and 
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sis- 
ters, yea, his own life also," when they oppose his loyalty 
to Christ, "he cannot be my disciple." Our kindred and 
our former selves are to be resisted as enemies to our 
highest well-being when they obstruct our fellowship 
with him who has redeemed us with his own blood. This 
justifies all that we have said about the superior intensity 
of Christian love. 

III. This family all speak a peculiar language, not a 
terrestrial, but a celestial dialect. It is neither an alpha- 
betic language, nor is it pictorial, nor hieroglyphic, but a 
heart language, heart beating to heart in spiritual uni- 
son. Why should they not? A thousand pendulums 
electrically connected will all give the same time-beat. 
All the saints on earth and in heaven have the same 
heart-throb of spiritual life because they are all vitally 
connected with the heart of the Lord Jesus. This com- 
mon language is a common feeling. Hence it can never 
be mistaken. A half a century ago, in the evening ser- 
vices at camp meetings, the scoffers sometimes would 
utter mock hallelujahs, but there would always be a lack 
of unction in their intonations which quickly exposed 
the imposture, and the good old Methodists would ex- 
claim, "It's the voice of the goats, not of the sheep." 
The language of Christian feeling can never be success- 
fully counterfeited. The language of the dry intellect, 
the language of the head, may be misunderstood. Hence 
wherever religion has consisted in theological dogmas 
alone, fierce strifes have arisen. But when the gospel has 



52 JESUS EXULTANT. 

been addressed to men's hearts, and has been received 
by faith in its transforming power, the weapons of de- 
nominational warfare are cast away, and believers vie 
with one another in magnifying onr common Saviour. 
Such, thank God, are the happy times upon which we 
have fallen. We live in a day when the Holy Spirit has 
come down upon the evangelical churches, and we now 
understand one another, because our hearts speak. In 
the eras of the warmest theological controversy this 
heart unison was not noticed amid the din and discord 
of clashing swords. Professor Shedd says that "Tried 
by the test of exact dogmatic statement there is a plain 
difference between the Arminian creed and that of the 
Calvinist; but tried by the test of practical piety and 
devout feeling, there is little difference between the char- 
acter of John Wesley and John Calvin. The practical 
religious life is much more a product of the Holy Spirit 
than is the speculative construction of truth." The ad- 
vance of spirituality will be the advance of that unity 
for which Jesus prayed in his wonderful high-priestly 
prayer in the seventeenth of St. John. It is said that an 
Asiatic Christian convert met a converted Feejee on the 
deck of a ship. Ignorant of each other's native tongue 
and burning with new-born love to God and man the 
one exclaimed, "Hallelujah," and the other immediately 
responded, "Amen." By these words they recognized 
each other as brethren in Christ Jesus. But what are 
these but two Hebrew words transferred, not translated, 
into all our modern tongues, words which once resounded 
over the hills of old Canaan? They suggest the ease with 



THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 53 

which believers communicate when they have learned 
the language of New Canaan. 

IY. This family have a common secret which has 
never been divulged. "The secret of the Lord is with 
them that fear him." "To him that overcometh will I 
give to eat of the hidden manna, and I will give him a 
white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which 
no man knoweth saving him that receiveth it." With the 
Orientals the white stone was a marble tablet used as a 
card of admission to feasts. The new name is an emblem 
of a new nature which none but the recipient can under- 
stand. Father E. T. Taylor used to glory that he be- 
longed to the white-stone company. If you would know 
this family secret do not knock at the doors of the count- 
less secret societies so rapidly multiplying in all our 
cities, for they cannot tell you. Ask no one but the Lord 
Jesus himself, for none of his disciples is commissioned 
to divulge this divine mystery. The half was never told. 
I have for many years endeavored to tell it, but I have 
always failed. "O, taste and see." This secret is the 
inward testimony of the Holy Spirit, an agent utterly 
unknown to the unbelieving world because it seeth him 
not, neither knoweth him. It is his office to "shed 
abroad the love of God in our hearts," filling and flood- 
ing with joy unspeakable. 

Y. Hence this is a very joyful family, since each 
member has been born of the Spirit and is led of the 
Spirit, The fountain of joy is an artesian well spring- 
ing up in their hearts. The peace which passes under- 
standing runs forever, a river of sweet waters, through 
their souls. 



54 JEStS EXULTANT. 

" Like a river glorious 

Is God's perfect peace, 
Over all victorious 

In its bright increase : 
Perfect — yet it floweth 

Fuller every day ; 
Perfect — yet it groweth 

Deeper all the way. v * 

In the highest experiences of this joy all tormenting 
fear has been cast out ; fear of death, for the believer has 
the victor j in advance ; fear of future ill, for he pillows 
his head upon the assurance "that all things work to- 
gether for good to them that love God." Their fear of 
God has no servility. It is the filial fear, respect for the 
loving Father. Xor are his commandments grievous. 
The law of the Lord is our delight, my song — the deca- 
logue set to music. The will of God is no longer a 
galling yoke upon the unwilling neck, but an inspiration 
of gladness in the heart. 

" I love to kiss each print where Thou 
Hast set Thine unseen feet ; 
I cannot fear Thee, blessed Will, 
Thine empire is so sweet. ,, t 

ISTo one outside of this family of regenerate souls has 
any ground for rejoicing, nor any right to be happy. 
The seeming happiness of the worldling is illusory, not 
real. It is as fleeting as the drunkard's revelry and is 
followed by the same depressing reaction; as evanescent 
as the fatal pleasure of the winning gambler. The felici- 
ties of the sons of God are as serene and lasting as God, 
their author. Under his moral government guilt can 
never be happy, world without end. Only the sinless 
angels above, and the spirits of the just made perfect, 

*F. R. Havergal. f Faber. 



THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 55 

sojourning in the antechamber of heaven, and the for- 
given sinner below, can be truly tilled with joy. We 
sometimes think that the bliss of the pardoned is more 
ecstatic than the raptures of the unfallen in heaven, "the 
sworded seraphim and the helmed cherubim," 

" With all who chant God's name on high 
And Holy, holy, holy, cry." 

For none of these have ever tasted redeeming grace and 
dying love. Surpassing joy, to see the Son of God lay 
aside his diadem of glory and stoop from heaven to earth 
for me, and to have the Holy Spirit visit my guilty soul 
and apply the blood that washes away all my sin, while 
the thunderings and lightnings of Sinai cease and a voice 
from Calvary whispers, "Thy sins, which were many, are 
all freely forgiven!" This awakens a thrill of joy such 
as no angel has ever felt. But to be adopted into that 
glorious and ancient family, the nobility of the universe, 
the aristocracy of virtue, and to have my name enrolled, 
not in Burke's Peerage, but in the Lamb's book of life, 
the family record of heaven, is a joy beyond measure, 
eclipsing all former joys. But who can portray the still 
higher joy of the soul's espousals to Christ, the heavenly 
bridegroom? To be taken into his most intimate confi- 
dence, to walk in white, arm in arm with him, and to be 
called worthy — this is a joy beyond expression. It is not 
the African bond-maid suddenly emancipated and mar- 
ried to her white master, it is not the rag-picker wedded 
by Eothschild, glittering in his silks, resplendent with his 
diamonds, endowed with his millions, feasting on his 
plates of gold, and wearing his baronial title. It is in- 
finitely more than any contrast that earthly society can 



56 JESUS EXULTANT. 

afford : it is a guilty wretch disowned of his father, await- 
ing execution for his capital crime, pardoned, led out of 
the convict's cell, enrobed in spotless array, with the 
ring of adoption glittering on his hand, led up the ivory 
steps of the throne of his reconciled Father and crowned 
amid the shoutings of myriads of loyal angels; it is the 
assurance of the Father's everlasting love. 

" O wonderful, O passing thought! 

The love that God has had for me, 
Spending on me no less a sum 
Than the undivided Trinity." * 

I have spoken in parables, but I have failed to give an 
adequate representation of the bliss which attends the 
realization of Christian privilege when personally expe- 
rienced in its fulness. 

VI. But not the least valuable consideration con- 
nected with this family is its inheritance. Avaricious 
young men are eager to ingraft themselves into rich 
families for the sake of a princely heritage. Thus ambi- 
tious and greedy men married women of the Girard 
blood to be remembered in the will of the merchant 
millionaire of Philadelphia. After years of impatient 
waiting they assembled, with large expectations, at the 
opening of the will to gnash their teeth in the madness 
of being "cut off with a shilling." But none of God's 
family will be disinherited or be put off with a pitiful 
mockery. The seal of his will has been broken. Listen 
while Peter reads: "Blessed be the God and Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant 
mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inherit- 

•Faber, 



THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 57 

ance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not 
away, reserved in heaven for yon [all persevering be- 
lievers], who are kept by the power of God through 
faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last 
time." It is undefiled. Many an earthly inheritance is 
polluted with extortion and fraud; it is stained with the 
tears of widows and orphans and crimson with innocent 
blood. Such heritages are freighted with the curse of 
God. But no stain of crime is on the heritage of one 
begotten of the Holy Spirit. ~No curse blasts it. It is 
also incorruptible. It cannot be wasted by use, eaten 
by moths, swept away by floods, consumed by fire, nor 
plundered by thieves. It is absolutely indestructible. 
God is the portion of his people, a satisfying and eternal 
portion. "I am their inheritance." Only when God 
falls into decrepitude and decay will the inheritance of 
his children come to an end. But this cannot be, for, as 
Peter continues to read the will, he comes to the words, 
"It fadeth not away." Ye who rejoice in the anticipated 
or possessed inheritances of your earthly parents, sit 
down and soberly cipher out by the use of longevity 
tables how many, or rather how few, years you are to 
enjoy your inherited riches. You and your possessions, 
your houses and lands, your bank stock, bonds and mort- 
gages, will soon be separated forever. In an hour some 
unforeseen stroke against which you could not fend by 
insurance, like a Louisville cyclone or a Johnstown 
flood or a Chicago fire, may sweep away the treasures in 
which you trust who are not rich in faith and heirs of 
the eternal kingdom. 

Eeader, on which inheritance have you set your 



58 JESUS EXULTANT. 

heart, the fading or the fadeless? earth or heaven? time 
or eternity? 

To assure the believer of this inheritance it has been 
handed over to one of the family as our representative, 
and is to-day held by him in trust for us. Jesus, our 
Elder Brother, has obtained the inheritance, and is hold- 
ing it as our trustee. "If children, then heirs, heirs of 
God, and joint-heirs with Christ." All questions of 
probate have been answered, and the estate is now await- 
ing distribution, when we, now under age, have attained 
our majority. 

In the mean time we are not left without bond or title 
or proof of heirship. "In whom also after that ye be- 
lieved, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise" 
(Eph. i. 13); not by the Spirit as some teach, making 
him the sealer, but with the Spirit, making him the 
seal and the Eather the sealer, so that the conscious 
abiding of the Comforter in the heart is the seal which 
authenticates, appropriates and secures. The arrow- 
head on any article declares that it belongs to the Queen 
of England, for that is the seal of the British Crown. A 
piece of sealing-wax attached to a deed authenticates the 
signature and renders it valid. But what has God's seal 
to do with my inheritance? Hear the rest of the quota- 
tion "which [seal] is the earnest [pledge money paid in 
advance to bind the bargain] of our inheritance." How 
long? "Until the redemption of the purchased posses- 
sion;" until our realization of the full heavenly reward 
promised by the indwelling Comforter called the Spirit 
of promise, not so much because he is promised in the 
Old Testament, but because in the ISTew Testament he is 



THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 59 

promising the glorification of both soul and body. Since 
the earnest money was always paid in the same kind of 
coin in which the full wages would be paid, we have an 
intimation of the nature of the joys of heaven. We shall 
drink from the River of Life which flows from the throne 
of the Father and the Son — the Holy Spirit proceeding 
from the Father and the Son. We who have the abiding 
Comforter need not die to know what heaven is. Have 
you this earnest, this slice of heaven, in your soul? Are 
you sealed with the Holy Ghost? Is the evidence of 
your sonship bright and clear? It is not God's will that 
any of his children should live in doubt with respect to 
an interest so vast. Assurance is every Christian's priv- 
ilege. He that believeth hath the witness in himself. 
Assurance of present salvation belongs to us as much as 
to the primitive Christians. There is, as centuries roll 
by, no tapering of! of the graces of the Spirit, although 
there was a designed withdrawal of the extraordinary 
and miraculous gifts of the Spirit. We have no anath- 
emas for those Christians who cannot to-day read the 
seal of the Spirit on their hearts, the pledge of an eternal 
inheritance. We are not here to throw stones at such 
people, but to tell them that by their lack of appropriat- 
ing faith they are excluding themselves from unspeaka- 
ble joy. I do not say that they are shutting themselves 
out of heaven, for many have groped along in doubt and 
fear all through their earthly life, unrelieved till God 
in condescension to some unusual upreaching of faith 
unveiled his face to them on their dying beds. Many 
call this dying grace. They might have had it as living 
grace fifty years before if they had claimed the heritage 



60 JESUS EXULTANT. 

of faith. Of what we have said on this point this is the 
sum: The Father uses no other seal but the presence of 
the Holy Ghost in Pentecostal fulness. He is the seal 
of both the Father and the Son. 

VII. But the most astonishing characteristic of this 
family remains to be named. It is a royal family. The 
earthly members are princes in exile. Their kingly lin- 
eaments are all concealed. They are incognito. Their 
royal glory is eclipsed. A cloud rests upon them here, 
a cloud of reproach, vilification and often persecution. 
But the time is coming when the righteous shall shine 
forth in the kingdom of their Father. The exiles are 
to be called home to the palace, their royal blood is to be 
acknowledged. They are to be enthroned and crowned. 
"He that overcometh shall sit down with me in my 
throne, as I have overcome and am set down with my 
Father in his throne." 

This is the tallest promise in the Holy Scriptures. It 
is like an Eiffel Tower. When I in my imagination 
try to climb to its top my head swims, so dizzy is the 
height. In the person of the glorified Jesus the God- 
man, we, his kinsmen, bone of his bone and flesh of his 
flesh, shall be inconceivably exalted. The elevation of 
a brother reflects honor upon the whole family. But 
there is an honor above this; it is the enthronement of 
all the family, not as Napoleon scourged all Europe to 
make thrones vacant for his plebeian Corsican brothers. 
The throne of the Son of God is large enough for all the 
heroes of an overcoming faith. The thought staggers 
me, that I, an inhabitant of that speck of matter which 
men call earth, am to sit beside Jesus on his throne, anj 



THE WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 61 

anointed king. The glorification of Jesus is both the 
pledge and the pattern of our future glorification. "Be- 
hold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon 
us, that we should be called [constituted] the sons of 
God. And such we are." Thus reads the critical Greek 
text as translated by the Revision. "It doth not yet ap- 
pear what we shall be: but we know that when he [or it] 
shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as 
he is." Study the description of the transfigured Jesus 
with his face shining as the sun and his raiment white as 
the light (Matt. xvii. 2; Rev. i. 14-16). John was one 
of the three favored mortals permitted to gaze upon the 
transfigured Christ, and it made such an impression upon 
him that he carried it ever afterwards, a dazzling photo- 
graph upon the tablet of his memory. But upon the 
isle of Patmos a being appeared to him all resplendent 
and glorious, and John thought he recognized the Lord 
iJesus with whom he was so well acquainted. For had 
ihe not reclined on his bosom? Yes, it is Jesus, there 
'can be no mistake, it is the same glorious form which I 
saw on the mount when the bright cloud overshadowed 
'him and a voice sounded from the most excellent glory, 
l"This is my well-beloved son." Down falls John upon 
fhis knees to worship, when this brilliant form forbids 
thim, "I am of thy fellow servants, the prophets." A 
mortal man who once wrestled with temptation as we do 
! now, so radiant with glory as to be mistaken by John for 
3 the Lord Jesus, the Lord of glory. Thus shall you and I 
■ be when our resurrection bodies "shall be like his glori- 
1 ous body." The old Roman patricians, after the first- 
i born, put to death their younger offspring, and the mod- 



62 JESUS EXULTANT. 

ern English disinherit them, in order to aggrandize the 
titled heir. But the family born of the Holy Spirit is 
unlike the rich and royal families of this world, in the 
fact that its Head desires not to diminish but to multiply 
its members, having for them an inexhaustible inherit- 
ance. Sordid, scheming and selfish men study to form 
marriage alliances for themselves or for their children 
where the dividend is large and the divisor small, in 
order to secure the greater inheritance. But the estate 
of our Heavenly Father is so immense, exhaustless and 
absolutely infinite, that the divisor cannot be so large as 
to diminish the portion of any heir. 

11 The more that come with free good will, 
Will make the feast the better still." 



BEHOLDING AND SHARING CHRIST'S GLORY. 63 



CHAPTEK IV. 

BEHOLDING AND SHARING CHRIST'S GLORY.* 

My hearers may have become weary of their pastor's 
reiterated admiration of the Gospel of John, its fathom- 
less depths, its lofty heights, its precious recorded utter- 
ances of his Master, as refreshing as cooling waters to a 
thirsty soul. To convince you that I am not allowing 
my sensibilities to overshadow my intellect and warp my 
judgment into an exaggerated appreciation of that which 
is only ordinary in its quality, I quote the words of that 
great American statesman and jurist, Daniel Webster, 
before whose eloquence senates bowed, judges wept 
and juries were swayed, a man who was not accused of 
that excessive religious enthusiasm which men call fanat- 
icism. Near the beginning of his seventieth year, writ- 
ing to a young friend who had expressed admiration for 
the poetry of the Holy Scriptures, he said: "Ah, my 
friend, the poetry of Isaiah, Job and Habakkuk is beau- 
tiful indeed; but when you have lived as I have, sixty- 
nine years, you will give more for the fourteenth and 
seventeenth chapters of John's Gospel, or for one of the 
epistles, than for all the poetry of the Bible. I have read 
it through many times. I now make a practice of going 
through it once a year. It is a book of all others for law- 

* "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me 
where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for 
thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."— John xvii. 24. 



64 JESUS EXULTANT. 

vers as well as divines; and I pity the man who cannot 
find in it a rich supply of thought and rules of conduct." 

I have quoted these words not because their author 
had perfectly enthroned the law of Christ over his heart 
and life, but because he of all Americans must be ac- 
knowledged an expert in literature, capable of appreciat- 
ing moral sublimity. This quotation should also con- 
vince our young people of the literary value of the Bible 
in a liberal education fitting for the highest usefulness of 
the present life as well as being an infallible directory to 
life everlasting. Morever, it should have great weight in 
determining the Johannean authorship of the Fourth 
Gospel. It is as great a natural and psychological im- 
possibility for one who was not a companion of Jesus 
Christ and not a listener to his words to invent those 
extended addresses of Christ to his disciples and to his 
Father found in this Gospel as it would for a stone mason 
to construct the Milky Way, because we find in them 
those deeper spiritual verities relating to the divine per- 
son and mission of the Logos, the Son of God, which 
neither men nor angels could invent, much less an im- 
postor in the second century writing in the name of the 
beloved disciple. John's Gospel is unassailable and the 
Bible as a whole is an impregnable rock. The Book of 
books has not been outgrown by the astonishing strides 
of human progress. It will never belong to the world's 
antiquarian libraries, those cemeteries of myriads of dead 
books whose authors, once ambitious for immortal fame, 
have passed into eternal oblivion. 

Our text is a part of the high-priestly prayer of Jesus. 
It is its tenderest strain, revealing the human heart of 



BEHOLDING AND SHARING CHRIST'S GLORY. 65 

the Son of God which he has carried with him "into the 
heavens/' a heart magnetic with human sympathy and 
love. It always touches my heart; it dips a bucket into 
the deep fountain of my tears. Whenever I read this 
text it raises in me a flood of mingled emotions — astonish- 
ment at the condescending love of Christ for me, then 
love responsive to his self-sacrificing love, followed by an 
adoring gratitude to my divine benefactor. It answers 
the question: What are the feelings of the Son of God 
crowned King of kings, sitting on his Father's throne and 
swaying his sceptre of universal empire? Have I, an 
atom in the vast whole of the universe, escaped his special 
notice? Have I faded from his recognition, forgotten 
by him who is surrounded by "the helmed cherubim, the 
sworded seraphim," thrones, dominions, angels and arch- 
angels? In his exaltation has he dropped me out of his 
regard, me so distant while he is surrounded by majestic 
orders of spiritual intelligences so near, me so low in the 
scale of moral being in contrast with those who stand so 
high? What chance has one marred by depravity from 
his very birth and disfigured by sins whose scars are 
indelible blemishes, even after forgiveness, rendering 
him repulsive to the love of the sinless one who hateth 
iniquity? The text assures me of his continual regard 
for me, despite the hideous traces of my past sins. They 
are my card of invitation to be present at his public cor- 
onation and to share the glory of that hour which will 
stretch away into the countless ages of eternity. Be it 
ever borne in mind that this prayer is only a specimen 
of that intercession which our High Priest above is ever 
silently presenting to his Father. That we might know 



66 JESUS EXULTANT. 

the contents of that supplication which is poured out 
behind the drapery of the skies and beyond the hearing 
of ears of clay, Jesus rehearsed in the presence of 
his diciples that prayer which is to be the burden of his 
desire from the day of his ascension to the day of his 
descent to judge the quick and the dead. In this prayer 
Jesus remembers me. How do I know? In two ways: He 
prayed not only for those who had believed his words, but 
for many others then unborn. Hear him: "Neither pray 
I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe 
on me through their word." Including as he does be- 
lievers in all future ages "he counts me in the whoso- 
ever." But perhaps I am not one of those given by the 
Father to the Son as intimated in the text. I know that 
he prays for me and invites me to share his glory if I 
can convince myself that I am of the number of those 
who have been given by the Father to the Son. Who are 
they? There are two answers: first, that of the predes- 
tinarian, that a definite number which cannot be in- 
creased nor diminished have been unconditionally elected 
to eternal life and their names are written in the secret 
will of God which he keeps locked up in his own bosom, 
a register on which no other eye can look till the day of 
judgment. But since the God whom we Arminians wor- 
ship is no respecter of persons we cannot accept this 
exposition. Our second and better answer is that God 
has through the atonement bestowed upon all men the 
gracious ability to repent and perseveringly believe on 
his Son. As many as use this gracious ability and freely 
come to Christ by repentance and faith are said to be 
given to him by the Father. The first answer magnifies 



BEHOLDING AND SHARING CHRIST'S GLORY. 67 

God's sovereignty, assuming that he can do so irrational 
an act as to make a choice without any reason. We are 
told that there is no arbitrary sovereignty in a choice 
which is dictated by reason. If we accept this doctrine, 
we must accept a limited atonement, irresistible grace, 
bound will, and the doctrine once in grace always in 
grace, or the final perseverance of the saints. These five 
points of Calvinism I can find neither in my reason, my 
conscience nor my Bible. It turns man into a machine 
and God into a despot. The practical effect of this doc- 
trine is distressing to contemplate. It leaves the believer 
in suspense respecting the gravest question, "Am I 
saved?" He can never consistently say, "Yes," since he 
is uncertain whether his name is on the secret register 
of the elect. Hence this doctrine hinders saving faith, 
obstructs the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins and 
a clear assurance of acceptance with God. But I find 
from the time of Pentecost all along through the New 
Testament that Christians are brimful and running over 
with joy, conscious of pardon, regeneration and sanctifi- 
cation. They have not only knowledge of forgiveness 
and knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, but they 
use a stronger word and speak of a full, certain, thor- 
ough, exact and perfect knowledge of spiritual realities, 
This experimental knowledge is in the Greek word 
epignosis frequently used by Paul and Peter after Pen- 
tecost, that great spiritual eye-opener. It is the office of 
the Holy Spirit to cry in the believer's heart, "Abba, 
Father!" inspiring an assurance of adoption. The first 
means by which the Father gives men to the Son is the 
law which is our schoolmaster, or rather the child- 



68 JESUS EXULTANT. 

leader, to bring us to Christ. In patrician families 
among the Komans a trusty slave was charged with the 
duties of a paidagogos, who took the child by the hand 
and led him to school and placed him in the care of the 
teacher. From this custom Paul borrows the metaphor, 
"The law is our child-leader." The second agency by 
which a soul is given to Christ is the convicting Spirit, 
who applies the law and awakens a sense of guilt and the 
wrath of God. He then reveals the mercy of God as 
administered through the atoning death of his Son. This 
heavenly monitor points the sinner first to mount Sinai to 
awaken a sense of need, and then to mount Calvary for the 
supply of that need. All whose wills assume the attitude 
of obedience toward God and trust in his Son as both 
Saviour and Lord are given to Christ by the Father, 
who does not drag them but rather draws them 
with an attraction persuasive, but not by an irre- 
sistible and necessitating power overriding free agency. 
Hence the provision for the conditional salvation of all 
men having been made, the question who will make 
their election sure by repentance toward God and faith 
in his Son is determined by each individual will, 
says the Arminian interpreter of the Bible. The Cal- 
vinist declares that God determines who shall be saved. 
This doctrine necessarily implies that God also deter- 
mines who shall be damned. Every coin has two faces, 
the obverse and the reverse. The reverse face of elec- 
tion is reprobation. The same misinterpreted scripture 
texts alleged in proof of the unconditional election of 
some prove the unconditional reprobation of the rest of 
mankind. This impeaches the moral attributes of God. 



BEHOLDING AND SHARING CHRIST S GLORY. 69 

Those who freely receive Christ receive from him the 
privilege of becoming sons of God. These are led by the 
Spirit of God as his gift to the Son. 

It is important to note that this high-priestly prayer 
was made only a few days before Jesus would ascend 
from the sepulchre to the throne of the universe. In his 
forecast of that hour he saw there would be one draw- 
back to his supreme happiness, one void which all the 
hosts of heaven casting their crowns at his feet could not 
fill. The angels and archangels, the seraphim and cheru- 
bim cannot on that coronation day compensate for the 
absence of his human spiritual kindred who have suffered 
with him on the earth. They must be glorified with him. 
The redeemed ones, formerly the objects of his compas- 
sion, but now the objects of his complacent love and 
delight, must be near him, not on distant thrones made 
vacant by the fall of Lucifer and his rebellious host, but 
close to his side. "To him that overcometh will I grant 
to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and 
am set down with my Father in his throne." This tallest 
promise in God's book is a monument to the love of 
Christ to believers too high for my poor intellect to climb. 
The very thought makes my head swim. Whenever I 
read this promise I am inclined to say "O blessed Master, 
this honor is too great for me." It is indeed a "weight of 
glory" so heavy as almost to stagger my faith. Is there 
not some various reading of the manuscripts or some 
error in the English version? Are not these words a 
gloss, a marginal pencilling of some enthusiastic monk of 
the Middle Ages, which has accidentally been copied by 
some honest transcriber? Did not the correct reading 



70 JESUS EXULTANT. 

omit the words "he shall sit on my throne" and have 
instead "he shall kiss my feet"? I ransack my library 
and search all the critical editions of the Greek testa- 
ment and the Variorum Bible and find no various read- 
ing or rendering. I will no longer doubt, but will accept 
with tears of joy this greatest promise ever sounded in 
the ears of mortals, or ever written in human language. 
There is no hint in the Bible that any other order of 
spiritual intelligences are invited to share the throne of 
universal empire. This honor is reserved for the royal 
family, his human disciples, alone. Nevertheless there 
is a wonderful fitness and congruity in this consumma- 
tion of their honor and happiness. It is appropriate that 
the blood relatives should share the dignity and glory 
when one of the family is inaugurated as a supreme ruler. 
The mothers of two at least of our recent Presidents, 
Garfield and McKinley, were with them when their sons 
were inducted into the highest office on the earth. 
Brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, cousins and 
more distant kindred, fellow soldiers and schoolmates 
are not out of place as favored spectators in such a scene. 
Jesus Christ is a real man, not a semblance, a phantom, 
but a perfect man having a human soul and a material 
body. He is my brother, bone of my bone and flesh of 
my flesh. His glorification has refined and sublimated 
his body, not destroyed it. Son of man he was born; 
son of man he died; son of man he arose and ascended; 
son of man he will come in his glory to raise the dead, 
both the just and the unjust. Paul is careful to state 
to the astonished Athenians on Mars Hill that God will 
judge the world by a man, "that man whom he hath 



BEHOLDING AND SHARING CHRIST^ GLORY. 71 

ordained." A man will forever sway the sceptre of uni- 
versal dominion. 

Thus far I have alleged that this amazing exaltation of 
Christ's disciples was to perfect the bliss of our adorable 
Redeemer. But there is another reason. It is congruous 
with normal humanity, which has an original susceptibil- 
ity to partake of the divine nature. This capacity, lost 
by sin, and restored by appropriating the benefits of the 
redemption, is now to reach the climax for which it was 
originally designed. Man is a photograph of God. He 
has faculties responsive to those in his Creator, personal- 
ity implying reason, freedom, a moral sense and spiritu- 
ality fitting him to be a habitation of God through the 
Holy Spirit. Hugh Miller, after tracing the successive 
eras of animal life through the geological periods up to 
the creation — not evolution — of man, raises the ques- 
tion whether after another geological convulsion the 
Creator will not introduce an order of beings superior to 
man, like man, a spirit acting through a material organ- 
ism. The great scientist answers his own question nega- 
tively, because this would introduce an order of beings 
superior to the Son of man, the God-man, which would 
be derogatory to his dignity. 

There is still another reason why Christ on the throne 
desires his earthly disciples to be in the innermost circle 
of all the various orders of being who worship the Lamb. 
He wishes to exhibit them as the fruit of his redemptive 
work, the purchase of his agonies, the specimens of the 
transforming and purifying efficacy of his blood and 
samples of the beautifying and adorning work of his 
agent, the Holy Spirit. The absence from heaven of 



72 JESUS EXULTANT. 

the personal presence of the Son of God during his 
more than thirty years' residence on earth may have been 
to the angels a mystery impenetrable though they de- 
sired to look into it. Hence saved souls washed in the 
blood of the Lamb, the fruit of his mysterious mission 
to the earth, become a conspicuous object lesson in the 
wisdom and love of God. Paul intimates that the 
church of God on the earth, composed of men and 
women regenerated and sanctified, are silently proclaim- 
ing to "the principalities and powers in heavenly places 
the manifold wisdom of God." According to the Ee- 
vision this divine attribute is made known through the 
church to these heavenly intelligences.* If this is true 
while the church is still on the earth, how much more 
will the presence of the blood-washed and white-robed 
saints in heaven, so near as to be capable of a close in- 
spection, have an educational influence on all who gaze 
upon them and hear them sing the new song, "Thou art 
worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; 
for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us unto God by 
thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, 
and nation.'"' TV ell does John say, "We know not what 
we shall be." We know not what an enlarged capacity 
for receiving God shall be unfolded within us; what a 
receptivity of love; what a faculty of spiritual knowl- 
edge; what an intimacy with him who is altogether 
lovely. "We know not what illustrations of the moral at- 
tributes of God we shall be to all the angelic hosts; what 
new revelations of his wisdom, love and mercy, we who 
have come up out of appalling defilements, will be to 
those who have not been polluted by sin. Seraphs will 

* Eph. iii. 10, E.V. 



BEHOLDING AND SHARING CHRIST'S GLORY. 73 

gaze upon us with wonder. Possibly we shall be the 
only redeemed sinners with whom they will ever come 
in contact, the only choir singing the new song, "Unto 
him who hath washed us in his blood and made us 
kings and priests." As scientists cross oceans and trav- 
erse continents to find out new species of plants and ani- 
mals, so may inquiring intelligences gather from distant 
worlds to study the unique phenomenon of saved sinners, 
a great company in white robes surrounding the throne 
of the Lamb. 

But we shall be more than spectators of his glory. 
This open vision will change us into his perfect likeness. 

"Soul and body shall his glorious image wear." 

To behold is to be transformed. We shall be like 
him, for we shall see him as he is. To behold is to 
partake. "But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a 
mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the 
same image from glory to glory." Even in this life he 
who most steadily contemplates the character of the sin- 
less Christ is the most perfectly delivered from sinful 
propensities. We become assimilated to the objects of 
our steadfast thought. As a man thinketh in his heart 
so is he. He cannot steadily think of Jesus and of im- 
purity at the same time. Hence looking unto Jesus is 
the conquering attitude of the soul. This is the reason 
why faith in Christ is victory over the world. Faith is 
the sixth sense which makes the invisible more real and 
more influential than the world of shadows in which we 
are moving. A practical inference is this: that what- 
ever increases faith increases holiness, and whatever ob- 




74 JESUS EXULTANT. 

scures the soul's vision of Christ weakens the motive of 
sanctiflcation. "And every one that hath this hope set 
on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." 

We now come to a part of our text which shows a 
peculiarity of style found in the language of Jesus and 
strongly reflected in the writings of his most intimate 
disciple, from whose Gospel our text is taken. In John 
especially there is very little orderly and explicit unfold- 
ing of one proposition from another. Frequently there 
is a premise omitted in his haste to reach his conclusion. 
The intelligent reader will observe that this is what in 
logic is called an enthyrneme, the suppressed proposition 
being carried along in the mind. Let us supply this un- 
expressed proposition. We get our clew to it in the last 
clause of the text, "for thou lovedst me before the foun- 
dation of the world." The missing link which connects 
this love with the glory of the Son is this, "To be loved 
from eternity by my Father is the greatest glory." This 
is the major premise. The minor premise is, "I have had 
my Father's love from eternity." Then follows the con- 
clusion, "Therefore he glorified me before the world 
was." This glory he wishes his disciples to see and to 
share. Here is a man who recollects what existed in his 
own experience before the corner-stone of the universe 
was laid. The great fact which this premundane mem- 
ory discloses in proof that the highest glory has been 
bestowed on him is the fact of God's love. Here is the 
true glory of men, of angels, of the highest created be- 
ing, even of the Son of God himself, to be the object of 
God's complacent love and delight. It is because of a 
wrong conception of what true glory is that sin came 



BEHOLDING AND SHARING CHRIST'S GLORY. 75 

into the world. Sin is missing the mark. The aim at 
anything different from the divine approval and love is 
that radical mistake which the Greeks called "hamartia" 
sin. That there is something better than God's love, or 
superior to that holy character which he delights in, is 
the ever-recnrring mistake in this fallen world, whether 
it be human applause, greed of money, gratification of 
bodily appetites and lusts, or any other form of selfish- 
ness. All these apples of Sodom, however beautiful to 
the eye, will invariably be found to be ashes to the taste. 
The natural man lives, moves and has his being in illu- 
sions. He is chasing a mirage to slake his parched lips 
at its mocking fountains; he is hastening to the end of 
the rainbow to find a pot of gold. The end always has 
been and always will be bitter disappointment. The 
human soul is so constructed that no creature of God, 
nothing but the love of God can satisfy its cravings. It 
has one infinite dimension — its desires — and the shore- 
less, fathomless love of the Infinite Creator alone can 
fill it. To be the object of his love is the highest glory 
of men and of archangels. To believe this with such a 
faith as sways the conduct and brings the will into obe- 
dience to God's commands is to be a Christian indeed. 
To disbelieve this, which is the sum and substance of 
God's revelation of himself in the face of Jesus Christ, is 
to make God a liar. This is the compendium and seed 
of all sins. The discredited testimony is the declaration 
of God that eternal well-being is in his Son. He who 
has formed a vital union with him by obedient faith has 
this true happiness. He who has not the Son of God as 
the object of his supreme love, and is trying to slake his 



76 JESUS EXULTANT. 

thirst at other fountains, has not the real life, genuine 
and eternal blessedness, "but the wrath of God abideth 
on him." The full meaning of these words no one will 
know until he hears the dreadful words of the final 
Judge, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire." This is the end of every substitute for God's 
love. This is what Paul calls coming short of His glory 
and approving love. This failure is not a pardonable 
defect. It is a positive rejection of God's love and must 
incur his wrath. "Why does Jesus desire the society of 
his disciples in heaven? I fear that you may have re- 
ceived the impression that it is solely for the completion 
of his bliss. It is more for our sake than his own gratifi- 
cation. The ruling passion of Jesus was always to be 
ministering to the happiness of others. At Jacob's well 
he forgot his own weariness and hunger in pointing a sin- 
ful, thirsty soul to the well of water springing up unto 
everlasting life. On the last day of his life, when the 
shadows of death were gathering around him and he 
foresaw the morrow's bloody cross confronting him, he 
offers a long prayer in which the petition for himself is 
very brief; the great burden of intercession is for others. 
On the cross he prays for his enemies. After his resur- 
rection the well-being of this fallen world was upper- 
most in his mind. "Go ye into all the world, and preach 
the gospel to every creature, beginning at Jerusalem." 
Give my murderers the first chance. Our text being a 
prelude to his intercession at the right hand of the Father, 
is a rift in the clouds through which we can see Jesus not 
sitting idly down amid the hallelujahs of the angelic 
hosts, contemplating his own glory. He is looking 



BEHOLDING AND SHARING CHRIST'S GLORY. 77 

down to this world, to the fields where his saints toil, to 
the factories where they labor, to the mines where they 
delve, to the marts where they trade, to the kitchens 
where they swelter, to the ships in which they plough 
the seas, to the sick-beds where they languish, to the 
closets where they pray, to the churches where they wor- 
ship, to the senates where they strive for righteous legis- 
lation, to the Sunday schools where they patiently sow 
the gospel seed, to the mission fields where they plant the 
cross and chase away superstition. For all these friends 
and colaborers he pours out his ceaseless prayer, whether 
they dwell in Europe, Asia, Africa or the islands of the 
sea, that they may be victorious over sin and at last be with 
him that they may behold his glory. He remembers that 
they chose him when others despised and rejected him, 
that they saw his divine beauty when the world saw no 
comeliness in him. To the Father he says, "The glory 
which thou gavest me I have given them." "In these are 
the object of my mission and the purpose of my death 
accomplished. I have through my mediation and self- 
sacrifice lifted up these willing souls from the low plane 
where thy complacent love could not rest upon them to 
share with me thy wondrous and unfathomable love. 
Thou, Father, wilt forever love them for my sake." 

"Let it in our souls be seen, 
Thy unbounded love to men. 
Show in us how good Thou art, 
Stamp Thy image on our heart. 
Call us out Thy witnesses, 
Bid us all Thy life express, 
All the happiness above, 
All the height of Christian love." 



78 JESUS EXULTANT. 

True love is honored and gratified in seeing its object 
honored. The true mother's happiness culminates when 
she sees the highest honors bestowed upon her son. We 
live in the objects of our love. 

The longer I live in the experience of the blessedness 
of the Christian life the more I am convinced of the 
naturalness of the bliss of heaven. By this I mean that 
it is not adventitious, the result of any artificial process, 
or of any change in place, or new environment, or of the 
arbitrary will of God, but the outgrowth of causes with- 
in our own hearts purified and indwelt by the Holy 
Spirit. The essential element of heaven must be in the 
spirit when it quits its house of clay. It must carry its 
fountain with it, an artesian well of love to our adora- 
ble Lord Jesus, undying and inexhaustible. Therefore 
how vain are the dreams of myriads of nominal Chris- 
tians that they are on the way to heaven, although the 
old life of self is in full vigor, never having consented to 
be nailed to the cross. They imagine that they are can- 
didates for everlasting joy above, while they are here 
below refusing to open the door of their hearts to the 
author of all spiritual joy, the Holy Spirit, and are in- 
dulging in pleasures which repel the blessed Comforter. 
Good opinions about Christ will never inspire love. The 
will must bow to his authority as Lord, and the reason 
must submit to him as an infallible teacher of truth, yea, 
the truth itself, and faith must cast away every other re- 
liance and trust in him alone. Men may admire the char- 
acter of Christ aesthetically as they do a picture in water- 
colors or a statue in marble. But there is no love and no 
salvation in aesthetics. Write it down in your diary, 



BEHOLDING AND SHARING CHRIST'S GLORY. 79 

your daybook, your ledger, on the walls of your shop 
and house, write it everywhere in indelible ink, that love 
to Jesus Christ cannot exist severed from obedience. 
There can be no substitute for love in heaven any more 
than there can be in wedlock. Suppose some unfaithful 
multi-millionaire should say to his wife, "Take this check 
for a million dollars in gold and be happy without my 
love — another woman has my heart." Could that wife 
be happy ? If you are curious to see a hell above ground 
go to that palatial mansion where lives, or rather stays, 
a marriage of convenience, an American pocketbook 
wedded to a European title. Heaven never dwells be- 
neath that roof. If there can be on earth no felicity 
without love, be sure there can be none in heaven. I 
once asked a young woman whether she loved Jesus 
Christ who died for her. She hesitatingly answered 
"Y-e-s; that is, I love all noble and beautiful qualities, 
all the moralities, purity, justice, truthfulness, benevo- 
lence, temperance; is not this just the same as loving 
Christ? My answer was this, "Go home and tell your 
mother when she asks for your love, 'Mother, I can't say 
that I love you, but I love all the good things I see in 
you, industry, economy, honesty, self-sacrifice. Is not 
that just the same as loving you?' ' Would not such an 
answer break your mother's heart? Jesus Christ is not 
a personified abstraction, a mere bundle of qualities. He 
is a divine person with human affections, with all their 
hungerings for the grateful, responsive love of those for 
whom he has poured out a wealth of love and sacrifice. 
He cannot be satisfied without our hearts. We may devise 
ornate forms of worship in costly temples, but if our 



80 JESUS EXULTANT. 

hearts are not throbbing with love to Christ onr worship 
will be a gilded abomination. All true worship must be 
the spontaneous outgushing of grateful love. Listen to 
that "Gloria" which floats down from the skies: "Unto 
him who loveth us and loosed us from our sins by his 
blood, ... to him be the glory and the dominion for- 
ever " (Rev. i. 5, R. V.). Only those who are delivered 
from bondage to sin can unite in that hymn. That deliv- 
erance must take place in this life. The new song must 
be learned here. Jesus said to the Jews, "Ye shall seek 
me and shall die in your sins; whither I go, ye cannot 
come." This plainly declares that there is no loosing 
from sins after we pass out of the present life. The dis- 
tinction between believers and unbelievers extends be- 
yond the grave into eternal ages. Believers will be 
eternally with Christ as invited friends. Unbelievers 
will be eternally separated from him by a self-imposed 
disqualification to enjoy his holy presence. 

While Jesus longs for the coming of his brethren, they 
are longing to depart, as did Paul, "and to be with 
Christ; which is very far better" (R. V.), or "far, far 
better" (President Timothy Dwight). The magnet is in 
heaven, but its drawing is felt wherever there is a heart 
touched by that loadstone of love divine. The favorite 
song of that heart is this: 

" My soul's full of glory inspiring my tongue : 
Could I meet with the angels, I'd sing them a song ; 
I'd sing of my Jesus and tell of his charms, 
And beg them to bear me to his loving arms." 

It was of such a soul that Robert Hall once said, "If 
there should not be room enough in heaven, God would 
turn an archangel out." 



THE CALL TO PREACH THE GOSPEL. 81 



CHAPTEK V. 

THE CALL TO PREACH THE GOSPEL.* 

There is a sense in which every Christian, whether 
old or young, male or female, is called to preach the gos- 
pel. The first impulse of every regenerated soul is to 
run and tell the good news to others in the same family 
or neighborhood, shop or school. Andrew findeth Peter, 
and Philip, Nathaniel. On such informal but effective 
preaching, as on the wings of love and gladness, is the 
gospel of Christ to spread through all the world. Woe to 
that church which from month to month hears not the 
voice of the young convert in its assemblies. Its lease of 
life is short. God has no use for a sterile gospel. All 
may not be called to expound God's word or to define 
doctrines; but all are called to preach by example and 
testimony. Even the mutes are not excluded from this 
privilege and duty, for they can communicate with the 
slate and pencil, or with the dumb alphabet, and can all 
be persuasive by holy living. The relation of experience 
is the most convincing preaching. A little girl of eight 
years came from her chamber to her mother, radiant with 
joy, and said, "Mother, God has pardoned my sins and 
given me a new heart; may I run across the street and 
tell the old cobbler?" "It will do no good, my child, for 
he is a confirmed and outspoken infidel," said the mother. 
"But it will dome good to tell him, and it may do him 

* "Preach the preaching that I bid thee."— Jonah ii. 2. 



82 JESUS EXULTANT. 

good, too; may I not go?" "Yes, if your heart is so much 
set on it." She went and told in artless simplicity of her 
sense of sin and guilt, of her repentant tears and prayers, 
of her trust in Jesus Christ who died to become her 
Saviour, of the light and joy which sprang up in her 
heart, of the feeling of love towards God, and of a voice 
sounding within saying, "Father, Father;" and whenever 
she thought of God he seemed no more like a policeman 
to arrest her, but a person more loving and tender than 
her mother. Before she finished her account of her joy- 
ful conversion her solitary hearer was in tears, which did 
not cease to flow until they were wiped away by the hand 
of divine mercy writing forgiveness on his believing 
heart. When Paul rose to the summit of his eloquence, 
whether as a prisoner before Felix or Festus, or address- 
ing the riotous Hebrews in their temple, he presented no 
elaborate chain of reasoning, but narrated in unadorned 
style his own experience of the transforming power which 
arrested him and, when he was obedient to the heavenly 
vision, made a new man of him when he had still in his 
pocket a commission to arrest and handcuff and drag to 
Jerusalem all the Hebrew disciples of Jesus found in 
Damascus. Testifying of personal conscious salvation 
through faith is a kind of effective preaching to which all 
believers are called. But it is evident from the analogy 
of the specially called and inspired prophet among the 
Jews, and from the plain declaration in the New Testa- 
ment, that the propagation and defence of the gospel are 
entrusted to a class whose only business it shall be to 
spread the gospel through the world, to explain its prin- 
ciples, enforce its duties and apply its saving truths from 
age to age down to the end of the world. "It hath 



THE CALL TO PREACH THE GOSPEL. 83 

pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them 
that believe." "Even so hath the Lord ordained that they 
which preach the gospel shall live of the gospel." This 
requires a class of men who shall have no other occupa- 
tion. The apostle Paul gave directions respecting their 
qualifications, ordination and work. It is everywhere 
assumed in the New Testament that the preacher is to 
be a man called of God to one work, being set apart from 
secular employments, except in peculiar cases where, 
after the example of Paul, labor with the hands is re- 
sorted to until converts can be raised up and trained to 
support their preacher. Paul was usually preaching the 
gospel "in regions beyond" all established churches where 
a demand for pecuniary support would obstruct his access 
to the pagans by awakening the suspicion that he was 
actuated by mercenary motives and not by self-sacrific- 
ing love. 

Reason also demands that Christianity should have a 
class devoted exclusively to its advocacy. In all depart- 
ments of human effort division of labor is requisite to the 
best results. Every calling needs a preparation, a period 
for the attainment of skill and of adjustment of the work- 
man to his work by the dexterities of muscle and of 
mind. He who combines several trades is proverbially 
master of none. Success waits on singleness. There is 
surely enough in the deliverance of souls from sin and 
in their pastoral care to employ all of a man's energies 
through all his life. 

" 'Tis not a work of small import 
The pastor's care demands ; 
Enough to fill an angel's heart, 
It filled the Saviour's hands." 



84 JESUS EXULTANT. 

We are not pleading for a priesthood, — Christianity has 
but one Priest, — but for a pastorate devoted exclusively 
to the proclamation of saving truth and the care, or cure, 
of souls. "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all 
nations, . . . teaching them to observe all things what- 
soever I commanded you." 

Here this important question arises, Who are to con- 
stitute this class? Is it left to be determined by inclina- 
tion and sense of fitness, as ordinary secular vocations 
are chosen? Or is the church to make the selection? 
Neither. No government would long exist which divests 
itself of the right to appoint its own agents to execute 
its will. The President of the United States selects all 
officers in the civil and military service. Jesus Christ, 
the head of the church, appoints his own heralds to pro- 
claim the conditions of salvation, his own pastors to feed 
and guide and guard his flock. For prudential reasons 
the church may license and ordain. But he is not a true 
preacher of Christ's kingdom who has not been ordained 
by the imposition of a mightier hand. This vocation is 
from on high. It is the Holy Spirit which says, "Go 
preach." He also imparts the most essential qualifica- 
tion, "the anointing which abideth and teacheth." He 
endows and equips for effective service. The next ques- 
tion is, How is the call made known? "There are diver- 
sities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh 
all in all." The Holy Spirit speaks in divers manners 
now as he did in times past. Various are the ways in 
which our risen Saviour and Lord at the right hand of 
God can make known his will to those whom he selects 
for the establishment and universal spread of his king- 



THE CALL TO PREACH THE GOSPEL. 85 

dom. We do not live in the age of miracles. Hence it is 
not reasonable to expect a supernatural call to preach. 
A voice from the sky addressed to the bodily ear and 
distributed to myriads through modern telephonic receiv- 
ers might greatly assist in arriving at certainty in this 
important matter. But in religion as in nature God uses 
no labor-saving machines to save effort on the part of 
men who desire to know his will. Labor, whether of the 
hand or the mind, is still a blessing in disguise. Effort 
is development in the spiritual life. "Then shall ye call 
upon me, and ye shall go away and pray unto me, and I 
will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find 
me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." 
This is God's ordinary way of revealing himself to in- 
quiring souls. When he pardons a penitent he does not 
hang out in the heavens a scroll with these letters of fire 
blazoned thereon, "Thy sons are forgiven," but he pro- 
motes the spiritual development of the convert by re- 
quiring him to turn his ear heavenward and to listen 
intently for a still, small voice, crying in his heart "Abba, 
Father," a voice which is to be corroborated by inferen- 
tial proofs drawn from the marks of regeneration mani- 
fest in himself exactly tallying with the Holy Scriptures. 
So it usually is with the call of the Holy Spirit to the 
Christian ministry. At first it comes to the new-born 
soul, not in a voice of thunder, but in a gentle whisper. 
It must not be neglected because it is faint and feeble. 
It must be heeded and tested with prayer and patience, 
that it may be known whether it is the voice of God's 
Spirit or of our own suggestion. For in our times when 
the sacred office is honored it is possible that it may be 



86 JESUS EXULTANT. 

sought as a stepping stone for social advancement or as 
means for a livelihood through the promptings of selfish- 
ness. Hence the need of great caution and self-examina- 
tion under the illumination of the Spirit. Of all mis- 
placed men he who becomes a herald of Christ before he 
is sent is most to be pitied. He not only "goes a warfare 
at his own charges/' but he goes into battle without the 
Captain of his salvation to meet certain defeat. On the 
other hand a more frequent mistake is made by those 
who disregard the Spirit's call because it is not sufficiently 
loud and distinct. They invariably suffer spiritual loss, 
and frequently they meet with disappointment and fail- 
ure in the secular business or profession to which they 
have turned aside. They supposed that a genuine call of 
the Spirit would, like the trumpet of Sinai, "wax louder 
and louder." The gentle call would have increased in 
clearness and positiveness if its first intimations had been 
received in the spirit of perfect obedience. It is the duty 
of every youthful Christian to listen to every intimation 
of duty and to give it a prayerful and earnest hearing. 
Then will the voice of the Spirit calling you to preach 
become more and more distinct as you climb the mount 
of devotion and get nearer and nearer to the most excel- 
lent glory. In other words, if God is calling you to 
preach, you will find that the more spiritually minded 
you are, the more distinct is the Holy Spirit's call. Thus 
you may be assured that you are called to this glorious 
work, this highest honor among men on the earth. 
Strong desire alone is not sufficient proof of heaven's 
call, since desire may not be born from above, but from 
beneath, as we have intimated. Yet we are thus com- 



THE CALL TO PREACH THE GOSPEL. 87 

manded, "Covet earnestly the best gifts." That this in- 
cludes the office of the ministry of the gospel we are as- 
sured by the same inspired apostle, "Covet to prophesy/' 
or preach (1 Cor. xii. 31 and xiv. 39). "He that desir- 
eth the office of a bishop \_i. e., elder or pastor] desireth 
a good work" — not "a good thing." We have quoted 
these scriptures to refute the mischievous error widely 
prevalent that no one should desire to preach and that it 
is modest to hold back and refuse to go till God thrusts 
you out; that you are to refrain from preaching till he 
hangs a heavy woe like a millstone about your neck, 
or shakes you over hell fire. The advice is frequently 
given, "Don't preach unless you cannot help it." This 
advice is well meant, but it seems to savor of obstinacy. 
The attitude of the prophet Isaiah is preferable: "I 
heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, 
and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send 
me." With perfect willingness to go, and possibly with 
strong desire, he was waiting for his divine commission. 
A model attitude of mind is this. It is more in accord- 
ance with the example of Jesus Christ, who evinced the 
spirit of service to others, than the position of resistance 
up to the point of yielding as the only escape from the 
perdition of ungodly men. A reluctant assent to the 
divine call under the pressure of fear of punishment, 
after the style of Jonah, has never seemed to be a com- 
mendable method of settling this question. God has no- 
where rebuked an expressed consciousness of unfitness, if 
attended by a desire to obey as soon as the will of God 
is made known. Isaiah had the good sense to confess 
that his lack of qualification was a heart not yet entirely 



88 JESUS EXULTANT. 

sanctified. For this is the inner sense of his statement, 
"I am a man of unclean lips." Language is the index 
of the heart. He confessed his need of heart purity, and 
immediately received it, and also received that assurance 
which always accompanies this grace, whether mediated 
by "the Holy Spirit shining on his own work" or by a 
seraph warbling in his ear these delightful words, "Lo, 
thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is purged." 
There was another difficulty in the way of Isaiah's mis- 
sion, the unsanctified state of the Hebrew people: "I 
dwell among a people of impure lips." The seraph was 
not commissioned to lay his coal upon their lips also, 
because they were not in a state of earnest desire for 
purification. It was the mission of Isaiah to proclaim 
their sinfulness and to direct them to seek the fiery pur- 
gation. Men are generally sanctified through the agency 
of men. Isaiah was not forward, he did not blow his 
own trumpet. The announcement that an agent was 
wanted was enough to awaken desire in his heart glow- 
ing with pure love. The very -fact that the vineyard of 
the Lord is lying waste, that the fence between it and 
the world is broken down, and that laborers are wanted 
to build it up again, should prompt every converted soul 
to seek that thorough cleansing which will prompt him 
gladly to volunteer, saying, "Here am I; send me." Let 
us suppose that there were two brothers who were prodi- 
gals in the land of want; that one returned and is met 
by the father's kiss_, with ring and robe and festive 
banquet. Let us further suppose that amid the banquet 
expressing the father's rejoicing over the return of one 
of his lost sons, he should with tremulous voice say re- 



THE CALL TO PREACH THE GOSPEL. 89 

specting the unrepentant son, "Whom shall I send to that 
land of wretchedness and starvation?" and the returned 
son, sitting at the feast in the best robe, should make no 
response because he had not been called by name, what 
would be the inference respecting his character? Would 
it not be that he was an ungrateful wretch, more worthy 
of a place in the swine's pasture with his sinning brother 
than in the old homestead with the forgiving father? 
The absence of the direct appeal to the brother who had 
returned is purposely designed to afford him a chance to 
volunteer in the gladness of his heart. Thus our Father 
in heaven, in the presence of all true believers, who are 
truly returned prodigals, says, "Whom shall I send" to 
your lost brother feeding on husks ? God loves volunteers. 
He accepts conscripts. It is better by far to preach under 
the anointing than under the "woe unto me" (1 Cor. ix. 
16). It is God's prerogative to reject or to elect; it is the 
privilege of every converted soul to offer himself or her- 
self for the ministry of the Word. The gift of persua- 
sive address no candid man can limit to his own sex after 
listening to such. a woman as our translated Frances E. 
Willard, the apostle of Christian temperance and purity 
to the whole world. 

Our contention is that every disciple of Christ, male 
or female, should covet the Christian ministry and in 
this attitude of mind sit down to examine the question 
of a personal call. Thus Christian parents in prayer and 
consecration should offer their sons and daughters to the 
Head of the church for the best possible service in the 
establishment of his universal kingdom. Should one in 
every Christian family be accepted the world would not 



90 JESUS EXULTANT. 

be overstocked with ministers of various kinds, pastors, 
evangelists, teachers and deaconesses proclaiming saving 
truth to all nations, peoples and tribes. Such is the pres- 
ent disproportion between the harvest and the laborers. 
Timothy was well prepared to be the successor to St. 
Paul in the care of the churches, because his mother 
Eunice and his grandmother Lois had diligently in- 
structed him in Christian truth and dedicated him to the 
ministry of the gospel. Thousands have been trained 
in the theological seminary of a pious home. Bishop 
Simpson says that when an eminent preacher is needed 
the Lord first calls some praying mother, some Hannah 
to train her Samuel for the service of his holy temple. 
Others who have toiled all their lives in small churches 
in obscure places, unknown to fame, and others who have 
become world-renowned preachers, have come into the 
Christian ministry through the gateway of a mother's 
faith in God and careful spiritual training of her off- 
spring. It may not be an unpardonable infraction of 
the canons of sacred rhetoric for the writer of these lines 
to give this public expression of his gratitude to God for 
leading him into this sacred vocation through such a por- 
tal. In many instances the stars which are supposed to 
belong to the minister's crown rightfully belong to his 
faithful mother, some Monica wrestling with God for 
the conversion of her wayward Augustine, or some Su- 
sannah Wesley closeted weekly with each of her children 
in prayer and spiritual counsel. It is no wonder that 
from the nest which she builded and brooded in the hum- 
ble Epworth manse there flew upward two eaglets till 
they were seen first by all England, then by all the world; 



THE CALL TO PREACH THE GOSPEL. 91 

the one "the greatest ecclesiastical organizer of a thou- 
sand years/ ' and the other the writer of hymns for all 
the coming generations. If there were more of this of- 
fering children to God in the closet instead of sacrificing 
to the Moloch of fashion or of mammon, there would be 
fewer downfalls in the slippery paths of youth, and no 
scarcity of reapers in the ever-widening harvest field of 
the church of Christ. 

The atmosphere of the Christian home has much to do 
with the question of ministerial supply. Is mammon 
your real household divinity in the absence of a Christian 
altar at which you daily minister as the priest of your 
family? Would it be strange if your imitative, sharp- 
sighted son should grow up a worshipper of the almighty 
dollar instead of a self-denying herald of Christ. Is the 
preacher of the gospel often spoken of with uncharitable 
criticism? Is his support treated, in the presence of your 
children, as so much money given to a beggar? These 
things will deafen them to the Spirit's call to the proc- 
lamation of the glorious gospel of the Son of God. This 
oifice was never designed to be a lucrative employment. 
This would defeat its high purpose. It would attract 
the worldly and the self-seeking. It is a law of the spirit- 
ual kingdom that the greatest good is always done at the 
greatest sacrifice. The spirit of sacrifice is rarely found 
in the children of wealth. Millionaires have rapidly 
multiplied in our country, but who has ever seen one of 
their sons climbing the pulpit stairs? In saying this let- 
no one suspect that we have sympathy with the doctrine 
that the wolf howling at the minister's door will make 
him spiritually minded and that unpaid grocer's bills are 



92 JESUS EXULTANT. 

a means of grace. We have a superlative contempt for 
that mean form of avarice which clothes itself in a saintly 
garb and adds farm to farm and thousand to thousand 
till the purse becomes plethoric and the soul becomes 
lean, and then goes to church and prays, "Lord, make 
our preacher humble; we will keep him poor." There 
is a class of Christians who imagine that the faithful 
pastor must preach because a fearful woe is hanging 
over his head. They think they ought to be commended 
for furnishing him with an audience before whom he 
may do the penance of preaching in order to escape the 
woe. We are quite sure that a weightier woe is sus- 
pended over that covetousness which is idolatry. The 
truth is that the Head of the church has ordained that 
a competency should be, not given, but paid to his or- 
dained servants as their well-earned earthly wages, a nec- 
essary earnest of the exceedingly great reward awaiting 
his faithful messenger in heaven. "Thou shalt not muz- 
zle the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God care 
for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for your sakes? For 
our sakes, no doubt, this is written ; that he that plough- 
eth may plough in hope." This is the Oriental way of 
saying that since God in the true spirit of modern laws 
against cruelty to animals has shielded the dumb ox 
against that refinement of aggravation which puts a 
basket over the mouth of the patient and hungry animal 
to prevent his tasting the grain that he all day treads, 
how much more interested will he be to provide for the 
proper care of his own trusted messengers traversing all 
lands to tell barbarian, Scythian, bond and free the good 
news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. He who 



THE CALL TO PREACH THE GOSPEL. 93 

has a genius for accumulating money and has the stew- 
ardship of his Lord's money is just as accountable as he 
who is the recipient of spiritual gifts and ministerial call- 
ings. Gilbert Haven, in 1840 in Boston, had as great a 
mercantile talent as his fellow clerk in the same store, 
Eben Jordan. Jordan died the king of the greatest de- 
partment store in his city where he piled up millions of 
gold; Haven, listening to the voice of the Spirit, turned 
his back on the wealth that was beckoning him, took upon 
himself the vow of lifelong poverty as a Methodist 
preacher, and after faithful service to God and man, 
especially the man downtrodden and oppressed, went tri- 
umphant to his reward. One left his treasure, the other 
went to his crown and throne above the stars. I was one 
of the invited inmates of the chamber where this good 
man met, not his fate, but his angelic escort to the skies. 
There were not many silver nails in his coffin, but he 
carried in his hands more money that passes current be- 
yond the grave, than Croesus, Jay Gould, Astor and Van- 
derbilt ever saw. And yet Haven had the only two 
things which all these money kings had through all their 
lives — his food and clothes. He was well fed and well 
clothed while obeying the command, "Be not anxious for 
your life, what ye shall eat, nor for your body, what ye 
shall put on." 

ye Christian young men, if Christ calls you to 
preach his gospel anywhere do not hesitate to obey 
with gladness, esteeming it the highest honor to stand 
by the side of our Lord Jesus and assist him to reap the 
harvest of the world. The question who will provide for 
your old age is not prompted by faith. The sparrow 



94 JESUS EXULTANT. 

Feeder will surely provide for his faithful servants. The 
disabled preacher who is supported by his church after 
years of service is no beneficiary. To deny this would 
be to insult every veteran who hobbles through our 
streets on his wooden leg on his way to the pension office. 
Socrates, the city missionary of Athens, told the 
judges who sentenced him to drink the hemlock poison, 
that justice demanded that one who had rendered so long 
and so signal service in elevating the moral tone of 
Athens ought to be boarded the remainder of his life at 
public cost in the Prytaneum. Such is the valid claim 
of every faithful preacher in the days of his physical 
weakness. 

But other questions arise. Is not a lack of liter- 
ary qualification a proof that I am not called? No. 
You are called to prepare. Jesus did not begin to preach 
till he was thirty years old. Why should a stripling of 
eighteen years, immature in body and mind, rush into 
so great responsibilities ? Wait till you are fully equipped 
and by drill in the camp have learned the manual of 
arms. To secure this preparation for your successful 
career as an officer in Christ's army put forth every effort 
and make every sacrifice. This is what Christ meant 
when he said, "He that hath no sword, let him sell his 
garment, and buy one." The call to preach is usually 
given to the young in order that they may amply prepare 
for their life-work. Let no one defeat this purpose and 
attempt to fly through the heavens with the trumpet of 
the gospel at his lips before his wings are sufficiently 
grown to sustain his flight. This highly intellectual age 
demands sense as well as sound in the pulpit. The 



THE CALL TO PREACH THE GOSPEL. 95 

preacher should keep ahead of his people in two things, 
piety and intelligence. 

But another question arises: How much weight must 
I attach to the opinion of kindred and friends in deter- 
mining the question of a call to preach? Pay less atten- 
tion to their negative than to their affirmative advice, 
because a prophet is generally without honor in his own 
house. We are apt to underestimate those with whom we 
have been familiar from infancy. The application of 
Bishop Ames for a license to preach was voted down, and 
the vote was reversed by the arrival of a belated negro 
local preacher, who was a member of the Quarterly 
Conference. The author of this essay had a similar 
experience. His nearest neighbor across the street, who 
had known him from childhood, freely expressed his 
opinion that no civilized people would ever endure to 
hear him preach, and that his only hope for an audience 
would be in some tribe of wild Indians on the western 
frontier. 

We remark again that it is a good indication of a call 
to preach when he who hears the whisperings of the Holy 
Spirit is found filling up his present sphere of influence 
as a Sunday-school teacher, class leader or exhorter with 
earnest Christian effort. Faithfulness in little things 
is a stepping-stone to higher responsibilities. This is the 
divine order: "Because thou hast been faithful over a 
few things I will make thee ruler over many." Thus 
thought President Lincoln, who promoted an earnest and 
thoroughly efficient colonel, Ulysses S. Grant, to be first 
a brigadier, then a major-general and finally the lieuten- 
ant-general of all the armies in the American Civil War. 



96 JESUS EXULTANT. 

The Republic indorsed the President's estimate by ele- 
vating him to the presidency. If a man has not piety 
enough to keep him active in his present field of Chris- 
tian service, it is a sign that he has either backslidden 
since God called him, or that he has not called him to a 
higher position. For such the pulpit is. The humblest 
pulpit is higher than the dome of any state house in our 
country, yea, higher than the Federal Capitol itself. "He 
that winneth souls is wise. They that are wise shall 
shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that 
turn many to righteousness, as stars for ever and ever." 
Robert Hall once said that if two angels were sent down 
from heaven, one to sweep the streets of London and the 
other to be its lord mayor, they would not debate on the 
way the question, Which is the greater honor? All men 
are to be equally honored who equally fulfil their duty, 
whether to rock a cradle or to command the army at 
Gettysburg. But to do as the God-man did when he 
preached up and down Galilee and Judea seems to be 
the most exalted occupation to which mortals can aspire. 
"I paint for immortality" was the reply of an artist who 
was asked why he lingered so long over one picture. The 
preacher who sways souls from sin to holiness preaches 
for eternity. His theme is the cross of Christ, the central 
point of human history. Scientific men may sneer at 
such a preacher as narrow because he confines him- 
self to one theme, Christ crucified, not considering 
that this theme touches all human interests. It gives 
the amplest scope to mental, moral and spiritual develop- 
ment. The preacher may apply elevating and transform- 
ing truth to every state of society and to every subject 



THE CALL TO PREACH THE GOSPEL. 97 

of human thought. In God's ancient temple the layman 
could enter no farther than the court of the Jews, but 
the high priest could enter every apartment. The 
preacher is God's high priest in the temple of Christian 
truth to apply truth to all human transactions from the 
king on the throne to the beggar on the dunghill. 

The demand is becoming imperative for earnest 
preachers to enter the doors providentially opened to so- 
called American imperialism, the islands of the sea sud- 
denly placed by the God of nations under the flag of our 
liberal and progressive Kepublic. Doors to millions of 
souls bolted for centuries have been unexpectedly opened 
to the American churches especially, since the political 
exigency demands that our flag shall float, in protection, 
if not in control, over the vast populous islands con- 
quered by our arms. There are times when the call of 
the Holy Spirit is marvellously reenf orced by the call of 
Divine Providence. Commerce is studying Spanish. 
Why should not Methodism ? 



98 



JESUS EXULTANT. 



CHAPTEE VI. 
st. Paul's only theme.* 

The character and career of St. Paul are an inspira- 
tion to every believer in Christ and a model to every one 
of his ministers. That character will never cease to be 
admired by all who are capable of emotions of moral 
sublimity. It will be a dark day for the Christian church 
when this heroic apostolic example will have no imita- 
tors. He declared that after a course of bloody persecu- 
tion he obtained mercy that he might stand forth as a 
conspicuous specimen of the wonderful power and con- 
descending mercy of God, and as a pattern of all long- 
suffering to them who should hereafter believe on him to 
life everlasting. We are justified in saying that Saul 
found pardoning grace that his course of labors and suf- 
ferings might be presented to every successive generation 
of Christian heralds as a model of all ministerial fidelity 
and devotion to his divine Master. His heroism is seen 
not only in his persistent surmounting of obstacles and 
dauntless courage to face foes thirsting for his blood, but 
also in the offensive doctrine to which he always gave 
prominence. He exalts and magnifies the most unpala- 
table truth of the gospel. He lifts up the bloody cross, 
awakening the anger of the Jew and the disgust of the 
Greek. To the one it was a stumbling-block and to the 

♦•'For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, 
and him crucified." — 1 Cor. ii. 2. 



st. Paul's only theme. 99 

other foolishness. The Jew's worldly ideal of the 
Messiah was rudely shocked by the hammer that nailed 
the Nazarene to the tree. Even to this day he will not 
bow the knee to Jesus Christ because he says, in the 
words of a Hebrew college classmate, "I cannot worship 
a dead God." The cultured Greek, whose exquisite 
taste has given law to art, has his modern successors who 
are disgusted with a theology that has the blood of atone- 
ment as a cardinal element. Every audience before 
whom Paul "reasoned" was composed of Jews and 
Greeks whose prejudices were harshly assaulted, whose 
tastes were grossly offended by the very mention of the 
shameful cross as the instrument of blessing to mankind. 

a For we must strive to recollect what the cross was. 
We have wrought it in gold and wreathed it with flowers, 
and worn it as an ornament, and placed it at the top of all 
human symbolisms, until we have transfigured it. It 
had none of these associations originally. It was the 
meanest of all the engines of torture. The guillotine 
has something respectable in it, as it was used in the 
decapitation of princes as well as of robbers. The gal- 
lows is not so mean as the cross; for, when there was 
slavery among us, and a master and his slave were con- 
victed of a capital crime, they perished on the same scaf- 
fold. But the cross was reserved for the lowest and 
vilest malefactors. It added deepest ignominy to death 
— Tacitus called crucifixion the torture of slaves." 

Paul was constantly under a strong temptation to 
please men by concealing the cross and by exalting other 
facts in the history of Christ. For he is a very wide 
topic, affording a vast variety of themes. Paul could 



100 JESUS EXULTANT. 

have preached many sermons without alluding to 
Christ's ignominious, judicial death. His inventive and 
fertile mind could easily have filled up his longest term 
of service in one place, three years, dwelling without 
repetition on other topics than the crucifixion and its 
relation to human salvation. He might have preached 
on the mediatorial office of the Son of God in the phys- 
ical realm, by whom the world's were made, and by 
whom they are upheld, and in whom all things consist. 
How easy for Paul's judicial mind to discourse of the 
Son of God as the governor of the world, proving that 
his shoulder upholds the kingdom, and that he is head 
over all things unto his church. How large the theme 
of messianic prophecy ! How many sermons on the text, 
"Unto him give all the prophets witness" ! How charm- 
ing and fertile the theme of the unique and wonderful 
character, a sinless soul mingling unstained with a world 
of sinners, wearing the robe of spotless purity amid 
earth's pollutions; each radiant virtue constituting the 
theme of a discourse, — his humility, his meekness, his 
philanthropy, his forgiving spirit, his zeal and diligence 
in his Father's work, the wonderful symmetry of his 
character, so unlike any creation of man's imagination 
as to prove him divine. How rarely did Paul in his ad- 
dresses dwell upon the miracles of Jesus, a large subject 
almost entirely neglected. He names only the miracle of 
miracles, the resurrection of Christ. The legal train- 
ing of St. Paul might have found a large field for its 
exercise in amplifying each of the wonderful utterances 
of the sermon on the mount, emphasizing and illustrat- 
ing every specific moral obligation. What proofs of 



st. paul's only theme. 101 

Christ's Godhood might have been educed from his sole 
judgment of the whole human race, adjudging change- 
less and eternal destinies! 

Paul knew how to become all things to all men that he 
might win some. Why then is he not politic and concili- 
atory in the selection of the theme of his preaching? 
There must be some good reason. This is found in the 
fact that the cross is the centre of the Christian system. 
To have ignored it would have been to pluck the roots 
from the tree with the expectation that it would grow 
and withstand the tornado, or to dig out the corner-stone 
and look to see the temple withstand the earthquake. 

Paul might thus have conciliated a few bitter Hebrew 
enemies of Christ, or he might have gained the favor of a 
few proud philosophers, but he would have torn out the 
heart of Christianity and would have preached another 
gospel. If he had shunned preaching salvation through 
the blood of Christ he would have robbed Christianity of 
its distinctive doctrine, on which rest both justification 
from the guilt of sin and sanctification from its pollution, 
and he would have made Jesus a favorite on the platform 
of the sceptics and agnostics of his day. To Jesus as a 
mere ethical teacher they would have no more objection 
than they have to Confucius, Buddha or Zoroaster; and 
his gospel would have become as impotent to save as are 
their religions. Jesus the expounder of the moral law 
on the mount of beatitudes provokes no great opposi- 
tion in the proud sinner. But Jesus the Lamb of God 
which taketh away the sin of the world arouses the 
hostility of the self-righteous, because it lays their pride 
in the dust to be saved through the sacrifice of another. 



102 JESUS EXULTANT. 

How contemptuous and blasphemous the words of a 
former professed teacher of Christianity in Boston, that 
''orthodox people are depending for salvation on the 
blood of a crucified Jew, the son of a peasant mother 
and a peasant sire." Paul magnifies Christ's death, be- 
cause as an atonement for sin it is the foundation of all 
the vital doctrines of the gospel. Here are displayed 
God's love, man's worth, and the nature and cure of sin. 
Let us consider the last first. 

I. The misnamed Christian Scientists and the so- 
called liberal theologians teach that sin is not a reality 
but an illusion of miseducated minds; that it is a weak- 
ness to be outgrown by further development. We are 
told that sin is an incidental misstep of an infant tod- 
dling from the cradle to his mother's knee — an incident 
or accident in the unfolding of immature faculties. It 
is very confidently asserted that there is no such thing 
in the universe as absolute evil; that moral evil, or sin, 
is only another form of good, — good in the process of 
making, as a bitter medicine is not an evil of itself if it 
)romotes health. We are gravely assured that the fall 
of Adam was the longest stride in human progress yet 
made by our race. This, in brief, is what has been aptly 
styled "bitter-sweet theology;" that sin is bitter in its 
experience but salutary in its final results, a relative evil 
antecedent to a positive good in its ultimate end and pur- 
pose. Hence "all is well that ends well." At the bot- 
'tom of this doctrine lies the pantheistic denial of the 
radical and eternal distinction between right and wrong; 
that the testimony of conscience to such a distinction is 
illusory. It is asserted that the foreboding of fiery in- 



ST. PAUL'S ONLY THEME. 103 

dignation and consuming wrath which haunt the guilty 
man is a superstition. This view of sin to which some 
are schooling themselves is an opiate to the conscience, 
disastrous to the individual and ruinous to society, be- 
cause it removes every safeguard to virtue which exists 
in the fear of punishment — a cardinal restraint from sin. 
Should the belief become universal that sin, in the lonj 
run, is as profitable as holiness, crime would run riot 
through the whole world. The bridle would be thrown 
down upon the neck of lust, and every good man would 
be tempted to regret a life of self-denying piety and to 
exclaim, "In vain have I washed my hands in inno- 
ceney." The world would become a pandemonium 
where successful vice would triumph evermore. "Evil 
would stand on the neck of good and rule the world 
alone." 

Let us now bring our study of the nature of sin to the 
cross, the only place where a true view of it can be ob- 
tained. Who is he who hangs thereon bowing his head 
in death? It is none other than the Son of God, who 
dwelt in his bosom and shared his glory before the world 
was. By him, "the image of the invisible God, were 
all things created that are in heaven, and that are in the 
earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or domin- 
ions; all things were created by him and for him."* 
Equal in power and glory with the Father, he says, "I 
and my Father are one." "He who hath seen me hath 
seen the Father." This person of infinite dignity is 
nailed to the cross, voluntarily laying down his life as a 
ransom tor many. The cost of redemption is the meas- 

*Col. 1. 16. 



104 JESUS EXULTANT. . 

lire of the turpitude of sin. Jesus died to antagonize 

sin, to neutralize its baneful effects and to arrest its con- 
sequences in such a manner as to afford no encourage- 
ment to sin, but rather to raise up the strongest safe- 
guard against it. If Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, 
tasted death for every man, it proves that in every man 
there is some fatal plague spot which must be removed, 
which nothing short of the death of the Son of God 
could effect. I need not tell you that this plague is sin 
which embitters and blights every human soul, casting 
an eternal eclipse upon its future existence. Before 
Jesus was born it was said, "He shall save his people from 
their sins." He began to preach and his theme was re- 
pentance of sin. He visits John the Baptist and he 
hears himself designated as "the Lamb of God, which 
taketh away the sin of the world.'' He heals the par- 
alytic, but his omniscient eye sees deeper than the pa- 
ralysis of the body the sin of the soul, which he hastens 
to forgive before he utters the omnipotent word, "Arise, 
take up thy bed and walk."' From the top of Olivet he 
looks down upon Jerusalem and weeps over her sins. 
On the cross he prays, not Bather, deliver me, but Bather, 
forgive the sins of my murderers. The whole scheme 
of revelation in both Testaments has distinct refer- 
ence to sin. The great problem with which om- 
nipotence wrestled was how to annihilate sin 
without annihilating the sinner. Justice said: "Let 
them share the same fate." Mercy cried: "Let me de- 
vise a ransom, though it be the most precious thing in the 
universe, even the only begotten of the Bather. Let 
his death atone for the sins of the human race 



ST. PAUL'S ONLY THEME. 105 

with whose nature he has forever united himself. 
Let him satisfy the demands of the moral Gov- 
ernor and the Protector of law, and at the same time 
melt the obduracy of sinners and sway them to a penitent 
acceptance of Christ as both Saviour and Lord." The 
chasm between sinners and God is bridged by an atone- 
ment satisfactory with God and influential with man. 
We may not be able to state correctly the philosophy of 
the atonement on its Godward side, showing in what way 
he is affected by the death of his Son. But the saving 
efficacy of the atonement does not depend on our per- 
fect philosophy, but on that faith which inspires love, 
imparts spiritual life, overcomes the world, and purifies 
the heart. The Father is grossly misrepresented when 
he is represented as a pitiless and vengeful Shylock de- 
manding his pound of flesh, while his Son is the sole 
embodiment of mercy. The Father originated the 
atonement and himself suffered in the gift of his well- 
beloved Son beyond all possible conception by men or 
angels. Suffering is the highest proof of love. To say 
that the gift of his Son to the manger and the cross did 
not wring the heart of the Father with the keenest 
anguish, is to strip him of every proof of love to a world 
of sinners. Professor Fairbairn asserts that it is a great 
error to teach that God is incapable of suffering. 

The self-sacrifice of both the Father and the Son in 
providing for human redemption pours a light of double 
intensity upon the awful nature of sin. Not so dis- 
tinctly are we taught that the Holy Spirit suffers in his 
part of the scheme of redemption. But in the applica- 
tion of it by convicting the world of sin, he must be 



106 JESUS EXULTANT. 

deeply grieved with every individual who rejects his 
mission and hardens himself in sin. The three Persons 
of the Trinity being interested in the elimination of sin 
are pained by its existence in any human character. 

" With joy the Father doth approve 
The fruit of his eternal love ; 
The Son looks down with joy and sees 
The purchase of his agonies ; 
The Spirit takes delight to view 
The contrite souls he forms anew ; 
While saints and angels join to sing 
The growing empire of their King." 

Thus the cross of Christ symbolizes the unutterable 
pain throbbing in the bosom of the triune God. Hence 
sin is no trifle, no mere misstep easily corrected. It is 
not another- form of good, a medicine, bitter indeed but 
profitable because it secures health. We reject the so- 
called "bitter-sweet theology" which regards sin as only 
a relative evil, a good in the process of making. It is an 
evil unmitigated, absolute and eternal in its conse- 
quences, unless cancelled by the voluntary acceptance of 
the atonement. The terribleness of the disease is seen 
in the sufferings of the Physician to find the only 
remedy. Would you see the cost of that remedy, gaze 
upon the thorny path of the Son of God from the manger 
to the garden, from the garden to the cross, from the 
cross to the tomb, every weary, bleeding footstep to find 
a cure for sin. Think you that your sins are unworthy 
your serious regard ? Sit down and ponder them beneath 
the cross of Christ and you will discover their deep sig- 
nificance. Your eves will be anointed to see the divine 



107 

image in you disfigured by the hideousness of sin. You 
will see in strong outlines the likeness of Satan imprinted 
on your immortal spirit soon to be made eternally un- 
changeable by that decisive event which we call death. 
Could men be induced to study sin in the light of Cal- 
vary there would be an end to the flippant talk about its 
insignificance, and there would be an earnest inquiry for 
the remedy. It is said that H\e thoughtful men were 
once asked for the best cure of sin. The first said, 
"Meditation on death." This may be beneficial to re- 
strain from sin, but it cannot remedy sin already com- 
mitted. The second said, "Contemplation of the day of 
judgment." This would have the same defect. The 
third said, "Meditation on hell." This might be morally 
healthful in deterring from sin. The fourth prescribed 
"The contemplation of heaven." This might awaken 
hope, but it might not be a hope which maketh not 
ashamed, because it could not blot out the record of past 
sins and regenerate "by shedding abroad the love of God 
in the heart by the Holy Ghost." The fifth man gave 
the correct answer, "Meditation on the cross of Christ." 
This is saving because it has in it the person and work 
of the Redeemer and Saviour. It looks towards both 
the past and the future. Looking unto Jesus is the con- 
quering attitude of the soul. It cancels past sin. It 
subdues sin within ; it overcomes sin without. It secures 
the new creation and implants the aspiration after per- 
fect conformity to the image of the Son of God through 
entire sanctification by the indwelling Spirit and that 
perfect love which is the full heritage of the believer. 
The story of Calvary pondered by a sinner drives him 



108 JESUS EXULTANT. 

to his knees in penitent abhorrence of sin. We do not 
know of a place on earth in which Christ crucified should 
be more plainly and earnestly preached than in agnostic 
Boston, where men are taught to look for a cure of sin 
in their own good works; where many, ignoring Christ, 
go about to establish their own righteousness. The fail- 
ure of such a scheme of salvation is now and then hon- 
estly confessed by its own advocates. While writing 
this sermon my attention is called to the following 
candid concession by a writer in the Liberal Christian: 
"Had sin been duly understood and dealt with by the 
last generation of Unitarian sermonizers, we should not 
have had the swing over into naturalism which has cost 
us so serious a loss of faith and power. The pulpit 
would not have become so easily confounded with the 
lecturer's desk, and preaching been placed beside other 
forms of literary entertainment." This is the confes- 
sion of a preacher who accounts the blood of Christ of 
no more importance than that of any martyr for the 
truth. In rejecting the atonement, he threw away the 
only fact, by which sin could be "duly understood and 
dealt with," the sounding line by which its depths can be 
fathomed and the only measure of its enormity. It has 
been said that 

" Satan trembles when he sees 
The weakest saint upon his knees," 

but there is another object which he gazes upon with 
greater terror, the Lamb of God, the offering for sin, 
shedding his blood freely for the cure of sin. In a Eu- 
ropean cathedral there is in the chancel a painting of a 



st. paul's only theme. 109 

cross. A ladder leans against it, and a rope dangling 
from the crosspiece intimates that the body has just 
been taken down. Beyond a hillock in the rear are seen 
the heads of four men who are evidently carrying the 
dead Christ to Joseph's new tomb. But the most won- 
derful part of the picture, and thafc which shows the 
intelligence of the painter, is a rill of blood running 
down the hill from the cross and a serpent running away 
in affright from that crimson stream. Christ "through 
death destroys him who has the power of death, that is, 
the devil." Gazing on this picture, may those preach- 
ers who have treated sin as a trine rectify their mistake 
on their visit to that open tomb which demonstrates the 
supreme deity of the Son of God, whose blood cleanses 
from all sin. 

" The cleansing stream I see, I see; 
I plunge and oh ! it cleanses me." 

II. In Christ crucified we find the highest expression 
of God's love to sinful men. The most comprehensive 
sentence in the universe is comprised in three mono- 
syllables, "God is love." Nature could not reveal this 
wonderful truth. Men of the greatest wisdom and in- 
sight could not infer it from the physical world or from 
human history. There is too much suffering in the 
world to justify such an inference. It must be revealed 
by the Spirit of God, who searches the depths of his 
being. The Spirit inspired John to write the words 
"God is love," the demonstration of which he had con- 
templated at Golgotha. 

Love is the only weapon that can conquer the re- 



110 JESUS EXULTANT. 

bellious will and transform the soul from sin to holiness. 
rt£nd divine love does this only when it awakens respon- 

I sive love in the sinner's breast. If love alone could save 
sinners, every prodigal son who has a mother would be 
drawn immediately from his husks to his home a re- 
formed man. As a parent's love alone cannot save the 
dissolute son or the fallen daughter, so God's love alone, 
though deep as hell and wide as the world, can save no 
soul from the guilt and love of sin. But love that 
awakens love in return is a magnet that draws men from 
the lowest depths near the very gates of perdition up to 
the highest heaven. The sinner whom love cannot save 
God cannot save, for salvation is absolutely impossible 
without responsive love, the first throb of which is the 
first pulsation of spiritual life. He is born again, bom 
from above, for, behold, he loveth. 

He who has so hardened himself in sin as to lose the 
capacity to be inspired with love responsive to the love 
of God revealed on Calvary must perish. For God has 
no way of regenerating the sinner except by awakening 
in him love to himself. If love revealed in the greatest 
possible sacrifice cannot awaken love to God, nothing can 
enkindle this sacred flame. It is certain that omnipo- 

L^tence cannot change the heart of stone to a heart of flesh. 
Power cannot constrain love. Xot the thunderbolt but 
the cross is the symbol of salvation. TThat a relief did 
Christianity experience when she shook off the dreadful 
doctrine of salvation through sovereign power and irre- 
sistible grace with a sledge hammer breaking down the 
door of the impenitent heart ! 

Herein is the secret of the rapid spread of the gospel 



_ 



st. Paul's only theme. Ill 

going forth as an angel flying over all the world, not 
with a sword in her hand, but with a trumpet at her lips 
proclaiming God's love. Deny the vicarious atonement 
and we have an utterly impotent gospel. The churches 
which have tried this experiment have lost the light and 
warmth of evangelical truth, and have felt the chill, the 
frost, the death of mere naturalism. But wherever 
Christ crucified is preached as the Eedeemer of the en- 
tire human race without one exception, and the Saviour 
of everyone who believes and receives the Holy Spirit, 
there is a quickening power which raises the dead to life 
and enkindles the fire of a quenchless zeal. Hence the 
cross of Christ becomes a live coal, which has touched 
myriads of dumb lips and made them eloquent to preach 
Christ crucified to all the world. A pentecostal ex- 
perience is the inspiration, the mighty motive power of 
the great missionary enterprises of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. 

III. Liberalists assert that the Epistles, especially 
those of Paul, present an ideal and not the historical 
Christ of the four Gospels; that salvation through his 
blood is a human addition to the system of truth left by 
Jesus, the outline of which is found in the sermon on the 
mount. But in the first Gospel Jesus announces the 
germ of all Pauline teachings, "The Son of man came to 
give his life a ransom for many." The whole oak is in 
this acorn. If we turn to John's Gospel we shall find 
numerous hints of the doctrine of the atonement. 
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat 
fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; 
but if it die, it beareth much fruit."* "The bread which 

*Johnxii. 24. 



112 JESUS EXULTANT. 

I give is my flesh, for the life of the world. Except ye 
eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye 
have not life in yourselves."* 

The crucifixion is not a fancy but a stubborn and ugly 
fact which a person given to idealizing a historical char- 
acter so rich as that of Jesus of Nazareth would have 
certainly thrown far into the background of his picture 
or totally suppressed. Hence we argue that the very 
phrase, "and him crucified," was designed by Paul to 
emphasize the literal genuineness of the Christ whom he 
preached, not a mythical creation, but a veritable per- 
son, who lived in Palestine, wrought miracles, uttered 
parables, preached sermons, died, arose and ascended, 
and proved that he had reached the throne by the out- 
pouring of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete of promise. 
There is not a doctrine in the Epistles which is not germi- 
nally in the Gospels. If Jesus had fully developed the 
doctrine of justification by faith grounded on the atone- 
ment in his own blood, he would have laid too great a 
burden upon their faith. Hence he wisely reserved it, 
saying, "I have many things to tell you, but you cannot 
bear them now." He might have added, "After I have 
gone away, these things can then be unfolded to you." 
After his blood had been shed, it was natural that the 
doctrinal relations and implications of this fact should 
be clearly set forth. For this purpose Paul, filled with 
Hebrew lore, an excellent Greek scholar and a logician 
of the first rank, was called to the authoritative exposi- 
tion of Christian truth as educed from the completed 
facts of the gospel. Jesus did promise "the Paraclete, 
whom I will send, shall teach you all things." Whether 

* John vi. 51,53. 



st. paul's only theme. 113 

this promise includes a supernatural communication of 
facts to Paul or not is immaterial, so long as there were 
eyewitnesses to those facts who were accessible to Paul. 
But all evangelical scholars agree that the theological 
inductions from those facts were made through the in- 
spiration of the Holy Ghost. Hence we may confi- 
dently deny that the apostles in unfolding Christian 
truth after Pentecost presented to the world an imagi- 
nary or unhistorical Christ. It is the very same Jesus as 
"was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen 
of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the 
world and received up into glory." 

IY. In the light of the cross of Christ we clearly see 
the inevitable failure of all moral reforms, all attempts 
to antagonize and conquer sin independent of those re- 
demptive influences which flow from the sacrificial ele- 
ment in the atonement made by the Son of God. The 
great purpose of his death was to destroy the works of 
the devil. Human depravity is a work of the devil. In 
his deadly conflict with the usurping prince of this world, 
Jesus welcomes all as allies who will fight beneath his 
banner and wield his weapons. What is his banner but 
the crimsoned cross? what his chosen weapon but his 
death, through which "he destroys him that hath the 
power of death"? This is the all-conquering sword 
which the Captain of our salvation girds upon his own 
thigh when he rides forth in majesty to subdue his 
enemies. He who fights any form of sin without the 
weapon of the cross of Christ is doomed to a humiliating 
defeat. Pride has been called the primal sin, and self- 
ishness has been styled the radical sin of our fallen race. 



114 JESUS EXULTANT. 

From these twin sins all others spring. No hand ever 
plucked them out of the soul but the pierced hand of 
Jesus Christ. How true to both nature and grace is this 
stanza of Isaac Watts: 

" When I survey the wondrous cross 
On which the Prince of glory died, 
My richest gain I count but loss, 
And pour contempt on all my pride." 

Concupiscence and enslaving artificial appetites such 
as the alcoholic and narcotic, which drag their victims 
into the depths of ruin and shut them up in the prison 
of despair, can be effectually overcome only by the blood 
of Jesus Christ. By this we mean to say, that faith in 
evangelical truth centred in the forgiveness of sin 
based on the atonement, and including the inspiration of 
spiritual life through the regenerating and sanctifying 
power of the Holy Spirit, made accessible to the believer 
in Christ crucified, is the only power in the universe 
which can conquer Satan and deliver the captives that 
he holds in fetters. 

Philosophy may wonder, despise and perish while 
scornfully rejecting the only purgatory for sin — "The 
blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin." This 
is the whole gospel in a single sentence, containing the 
head and front of all its offence against the pride of 
fallen man and its alleged collision with human reason. 

It follows that Christ crucified is the test of every ef- 
fort to save the individual and to regenerate society. 
Does it draw its inspiration from the cross, and is the 
cross the centre of the truths which are applied and en- 
forced? Then it is of God. Roman Catholic legends 



st. paul's only theme. 115 

often embody some important truth. It is said of St. 
Martin of Tonrs that once, while meditating in his cell, 
there appeared a form radiant with beauty, crowned 
with a jewelled diadem, with a countenance glorious and 
persuasive, and a manner so austere that it seemed to re- 
quire homage and love. This form said, "I am Christ; 
worship me." After St. Martin had looked long in 
silence, he gazed upon the hands and said: "Where is the 
print of the nails?" The vision suddenly vanished, and 
St. Martin was left alone, assured that he had met the 
tempter. 

Are we Protestants not invited to bow the knee to 
some Christ of our own imagination, a Christ without 
the nail-print, whom it is easy to serve because his ser- 
vice does not require self -crucifixion? 

Beware, my beloved, of every form of so-called 
Christianity out of which the element of self-sacrifice 
has been dropped. For there are false Christs in many 
beautiful forms in modern times. A perfect orthodoxy— 
may enrobe a phantom Christ. "We may," in the 
words of John Wesley, "be as orthodox as the devil and 
as wicked. For the devils believe and tremble and are 
devils still." Yea, the modern evangelical who rests in 
a mere intellectual assent to the truth may not even 
tremble before the object of his faith. Thus he may 
prove that his piety is inferior to that of the demons 
themselves. 

How many are worshipping the false Christ of splen- 
did ritualism, resting in symbols forgetful of the thing 
signified, content with water baptism with no aspiration 
after the baptism of the Spirit. They are satisfied with 



116 JESUS EXULTANT. 

the wine, the emblem of the blood, without experiencing 

the joy of the Holy Ghost of which it is also an emblem. 
They may be advocates of the individual cnp with no 
individual appropriation of the blood of Christ to the 
soul's spiritual need. The ritualistic Christ may always 
be known by his uncharitable exclusiveness. He limits 
his grace to those who have a certain external mark 
made by tactual succession, a myth of myths which no 
man on earth can prove to be real, or which would be of 
no value if it were real. "He is a Jew which is one 
inwardly." Others again worship an ethical Christ, ad- 
-vancing no farther than the sermon on the mount; they 
never reach Mount Calvary. They are legalists. They 
insist on a righteousness without the basis of regenera- 
tion, a righteousness which is independent of grace and 
a substitute for the new birth. It is one thing to admire 
the beauty of Christ's moral character, and quite an- 
other to submit to him as Lord by an all-surrendering 
trust and an intense desire to be conformed to the image 
of Christ by being crucified with* him. 

It will be spiritually healthful always to remember 
that there is no salvation in a fancied Christ. Only the 
real Christ can save sinners. Jesus more than hints that 
many people will forget this truth and lose their souls 
in consequence. Hear him: "Many will say unto me in 
that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy 
name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name 
done many wonderful works ? Then will I profess unto 
them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work 
iniquity."* 

In conclusion we remark that our text is the best touch- 

•Matt. vii. 21, 22. 



st. paul's only theme. 117 

stone of the subject-matter of preaching in our time and 
in all times. An aged Methodist minister, a doctor of 
divinity, whose preaching had been eminently evangelistic 
and fruitful of conversions, after several years of retire- 
ment from the pulpit made to me the following statement: 
"For several years I have been an earnest listener to the 
preaching of my younger brethren. If a man should 
believe what some of them say, he would be no better, 
and if he should disbelieve it all, he would be no worse." 
My beloved ministerial brother, if this is a description 
of your preaching, you will be far from having boldness 
in the day of judgment. That great day will prove that 
the Christian ministry misused brings the heaviest con-^ 
demnation. There are only two pulpit themes, Christ 
or self. Many begin with Christ, but unconsciously 
switch off to self. "Wherefore let him that thinketh he 
standeth take heed lest he fall."* 
* 1 Cor x. 12. 



118 JESUS EXULTANT. 



CHAPTEE YII. 

THE KINGDOM OF GOD.* 

It is not my purpose to amplify the negative part of 
this scripture, which denies that the kingdom of God 
consists in external ordinances, in eating and drinking in 
scrupulous conformity to ceremonial requirements. I 
shall dwell wholly on the positive statement of the con- 
tents of genuine Christianity. There is a sense in which 
God has three kingdoms. The first two constitute the 
platform or pedestal on which the third is erected. First, 
God reigns over the material world by the mechanical 
necessity of physical laws. In this kingdom there is no 
freedom. The subjects, whether floating atoms or blaz- 
ing suns, bow to the law of necessity. To this kingdom 
our bodies belong. The laws of gravitation and of vital 
chemistry are ceaselessly at work in them, whether we 
will or not, whether we wake or sleep. In the second 
place, God presides over a moral government requiring 
obedience to the universal law of moral obligation. God 
did not give us the privilege of choosing whether or not 
we would be in this kingdom. We are in it by no vote 
or consent of ours. The moral law is imbedded in our 
very constitution. We can escape it only by escaping 
two beings, God and ourselves. We may disobey and 
suffer penalty; we may obey and enjoy the reward. But 
on the basis of these two kingdoms stands another. No 

*" For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, 
and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."— Rom. xiv. 17. 



THE KINGDOM OF GOB. 119 

one is in it of necessity, but everyone enters freely. The 
law of this kingdom is love of righteousness. All who 
love righteousness love God, its perfect embodiment, and 
belong to this kingdom. Hence it is purely spiritual 
with an ethical basis. It was founded by the Father. 
When some method of making the wicked righteous was 
needed, he devised the scheme of the atonement. Hence 
he is no impersonation of mercilessness holding an 
iron sceptre, as some falsely assert, but a tender Father 
devising the ransom of his banished ones. "God so 
loved the world," says the divine record. The atone- 
ment is a river of love rising in the heart of the Father, 
flowing through the self-sacrifice of the Son and empty- 
ing itself on the earth in the gift of the Holy Ghost to 
restore to human souls the lost image of God, righteous- 
ness and true holiness. The Son of God is the adminis- 
trator of this kingdom. He is head over all things to 
his church. "My kingdom is not of this world." From 
the residence of a majority of its subjects it is called the 
kingdom of heaven. The census of that kingdom would 
be so great that the number on the earth are to the num- 
ber in heaven as a handful of sand is to a continent, or as 
the planets of our system are to the milky way powdered 
with stars. We have said that the fundamental quali- 
fication for this kingdom is righteousness. This may 
exist with little peace and less joy. A righteous man may 
be disturbed by fears and distressed by doubts. Many a 
righteous soul has inward unrest because of the constant 
warfare with hereditary proneness to sin. "But," says 
one, "is not peace always attendant upon righteousness as 
its natural fruit?" It is the natural fruit of perfect 



120 



JESUS EXULTANT. 



righteousness. But many do not advance into this land 

of peace, 

" Where dwells the Lord our Kighteousness, 
And keeps his own in perfect peace, 
And everlasting rest." 

Hence the pertinency of the exhortation as correctly 
rendered in the Eevised Version, "Being justified by 
faith, let us have peace with God through Jesus Christ." 
Peace is to be sought by slaying all her enemies. 

That righteousness may exist without conscious assur- 
ance of acceptance and peace and without even a knowl- 
edge of the historical Christ, is no new and strange doc- 
trine, as may be seen in the introduction of Peter's ser- 
mon at Caesarea: "Of a truth I perceive that God is no 
respecter of persons ; but in every nation he that f eareth 
\ God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him." 
Cornelius was in a state of acceptance as a servant, in 
doubt and fear without the Spirit of adoption, because 
he was ignorant of the giver, Jesus Christ. Says Paul: 
"When the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by 
nature the things contained in the law, these having not 
the law are a law unto themselves, which show the work 
of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also 
bearing witness." 

On this ground the pagans need no probation after 
death. They who by living up to their best light have 
put on the elements of Christ's character have the essen- 
tial Christ, though ignorant of the historical Christ. 

Jesus, in that most sublimely a wf id passage which 
ever fell from his lips, represents the decisions of the day 
of judgment as turning not on the treatment of the his- 
torical Christ, but on the treatment of his representatives, 



THE KINGDOM OP GOD. 121 

the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the naked, the homeless 
child, the prisoner. Every one has a chance to become 
acquainted with the essential Christ and to reject or to 
assume and manifest his spirit. What a throng of good 
Samaritans, of humble peacemakers, of humane men 
and tender-hearted women in the humble walks of life, 
whose names the trump of fame never sounded, will be 
surprised to hear that they have ministered unto Jesus 
Christ! They lived in fear of losing heaven and died in 
doubt of their destiny. 

Righteousness is conformity to the law of God; holi- 
ness is conformity to his nature. Eighteousness, if pos- 
sible without a knowledge of Christ, as in the case of 
pious pagans living up to their best light, affords little 
peace and less joy because of grave uncertainty and pain- 
ful doubt. It is a scheme of justification by works and 
not by faith in the personal Christ. Repeated failures 
lead the thoughtful moralist to utter the despairing cry, 
"0, wretched man that I am." He is like a man at- 
tempting to cross the gulf of perdition walking on a 
single hair stretched from mountain top to mountain top. 
Having no balancing-pole, he is constantly in unstable 
equilibrium, and full of fear lest at every step he may 
lose his balance and irrecoverably fall into the yawning 
chasm. He cannot cancel one sin by meritorious works. 
He can find no day in which he can do overwork and 
thus compensate for past sin. The law claims the full 
revenue of his powers every moment. But the 
righteousness which results from faith in Christ has 
grounds for both peace and joy in various degrees. The 
justified person is required to keep the whole law and 



122 JESUS EXUL1ANT. 

to be perfectly holy. To such, is given the command, 
"Be ye yourselves holy in all manner of living, for I am 
holy."* Every soul is required to make a complete 
consecration to Christ and to turn away from every 
known sin. In the lower stages of Christian experience 
this involves a painful struggle and frequent failures. 
This is because duty has not been transformed into de- 
light by the inspiration of perfect love. 

We may compare the kingdom of God to a three- 
storied temple founded on Christ, the corner stone. 
The first story is a basement partly underground, the 
region of shadow and darkness, the cellar-kitchen of this 
palace, where servants toil in fear and hirelings work for 
wages. As servants, they are faithful, conscientious 
and true to their blaster's interests. They are not 
drones, nor gluttons, nor drunkards, nor stewards wast- 
ing their Master's goods. Their service is voluntary. 
They have chosen it in preference to any other. Yet 
they are not joyful, but rather fearful that they shall 
fail to please their Master and so lose their wages. For 
they toil with an eye to the reward, and every day after 
twelve o'clock they often look over their shoulders to see 
whether the sun is not setting, so that they may quit for 
the day and draw their pay. While they believe that 
they are serving the best of masters, they sigh when they 
contrast their condition with that of his acknowledged 
sons and daughters in the parlors above. They are 
tempted to be sad and envious, not cheerful and songful. 
In this state of mind there is danger of discouragement 
and abandonment of the service. For it is natural for 
us to escape from an irksome employment. The pre- 
•1 Pet. i. 16, R. V, 



THE KINGDOM OP GOD. 123 

dominant motive of their service is fear, not love, and 
there is no magnetism in fear to attract and hold them 
steadfast. We forgot to say that this lower story is 
righteousness. It has always had a very numerous 
population. The Old Testament saints nearly all dwelt 
here. Here John the Baptist toiled. Here live to-day 
a large number of legal, not evangelical, Christians. 
They are under the law. Here are many good Metho- 
dists, Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Epis- 
copalians and Protestants generally. All unconsciously 
they make obedience to the law the ground of their justi- 
fication, while they have in their hands the New Testa- 
ment, which declares that by the deeds of the law shall 
no flesh be justified, for by the law is the knowledge of 
sin, not deliverance from its guilt and power. It is an 
irksome, uphill business this earning salvation. It is 
always attended by a discouraging sense of failure. The 
sincere and devout portion of the vast Koman Catholic 
church here dwell under the yoke of religious bondage, 
both priests and people dying in gloom illumined with 
a single ray of hope that they may escape hell and get 
into purgatory, a figment of pagan mythology utterly 
unknown to revelation. I am so charitable as to believe 
that the truly pious among them will find the gate of 
heaven open at their coming, and that they will be saved 
on the same terms as any other image-worshipping 
pagans, through the spirit of faith and the purpose of 
righteousness. By this we mean the disposition to em- 
brace Christ, the object of faith, were he properly pre- 
sented to their faith, and the desire to keep the moral 
law were it clearly revealed to them without the chaff of 



124 JESUS EXULTANT. 

traditional errors. Here again are God-fearing Mo- 
hammedans, who follow their best light, a few ethical 
rays from our Bible struggling through the dense fog of 
the errors of Islam. Here are two other classes of hon- 
est and prayerful Unitarians, those Jews who, through 
miseducation, rather than from badness of heart, have 
their eye? blindfolded to the beauty of Christ, the true 
Messiah, and those self-styled liberal Christians who in 
sincerity worship the Father, but cannot call Jesus Lord 
because they have not the Holy Spirit ; over whose eyes 
cataracts have grown so that they cannot see the 
Central Sun in the heavens of Christian theology, the 
divinity of the Son of God. So far as these classes, 
blinded by prejudices of education and misled by blind 
religious guides, follow that path of righteous living re- 
vealed by the light which faintly comes to them through 
clouds of error, so far they may be accepted of God 
through the mediation of his Son, ''though/' as John 
Wesley says, ''they know him not." They cannot be 
classed among the wilful rejecters of Christ. They may 
be saved as servants, though they have not lived as sons. 
They have always dwelt among the bondmen and have 
been actuated by servile motives. If they have ever 
heard of Jesus Christ, the great emancipator who makes 
"free indeed," through some misconception of their 
privilege or of his power they have failed to appropriate 
his proclamation of liberty. The difficulty with those 
who serve God in the legal spirit is that their acts of 
obedience are viewed as duty, a word not found in the 
Bible in the sense commonly ascribed to that term. Acts 
of duty are consciously performed. These are they who 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 125 

are legally right because they honor law. But they do 
not freely and spontaneously love the Lawgiver. They 
are like boys learning to write by painfully imitating 
the teacher's copy. Their action is constrained and not 
spontaneous and free. In the legal stage of religious 
experience we are thinking only of the law and its re- 
wards and punishments. People who abstain from 
crime under the pressure of this motive are worthy of 
some commendation, for they are better citizens than 
those who disregard all the sanctions of law. But we 
reserve our highest commendation for those citizens 
who because of their love for their fellow-men spon- 
taneously fulfil all the requirements of law, uncon- 
sciously obeying its precepts and refraining from its 
prohibitions. They help the cripple who falls in the 
street; they feed the hungry; they refrain from theft, 
adultery and murder because of the feeling of philan- 
thropy and love of virtue, and not because of any law 
human or divine. 

It is possible to advance so far in the Christian life as 
to be free from the law as an impulse to right living be- 
cause we have found a better motive, love toward God 
and man. When this new motive is enthroned and 
servility to law is eliminated, the transition is from > 
bondage to liberty. 

But a broad staircase leads up into the apartment of 
peace; while the Lord of this castle is constantly inviting 
those below to ascend, to exchange the place of servants 
for that of sons. For he is willing to adopt the whole 
crowd into his family, but only now and then one has 
the good sense to believe in the sincerity of the offer and 



126 JESUS EXULTANT. 

to accept it, to doff the servants' livery and to don the 
many-colored robe of sonship and heirship. This room 
is spacious and sunny and resonant with songs. Yet its 
occupants do more work than the servants downstairs. 
But they do not work for wages, but from love to their 
adopted Father. They are sons; they belong to the 
royal family; the whole estate is theirs. This gives a 
new character to their labor, lifting it infinitely above 
the drudgery of wage-service. When the hired man 
marries the daughter of his employer he doesn't play the 
gentleman at leisure and cease working, but he works all 
the harder because he now is a member of the firm. 
This takes all the irksomeness out of his toil and bedecks 
it with roses. "And because ye are sons, God has sent 
forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, 
Father." The filial feeling is suddenly breathed into 
the soul. Fear of a servile kind which brings torment 
is removed. Fear of death disappears and the fear of 
future ill. Child-like trust in the newly-found Father 
mostly banishes fear and enthrones peace. The habit of 
faith becomes fixed, love lubricates all acts of obedience 
and stern duty is dissolved in love. Service ceases to be 
a task and love knows no burdens. The beneficent law 
of habit now comes in to afford an additional safeguard 
to the gift of peace. Paul says of Christ, "He is our 
peace." And Jesus says to his disciples in every age, 
"My peace I give unto you." Hence it is the rightful 
heritage of every believer. It is described as the 
"peace of God" because He is its source and origin. It is 
the deep tranquillity of soul resting wholly upon God in 
contrast with the unrest and anxiety engendered by a 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 127 

self-centred and worldly spirit. It is said by the apostle 
to "pass all understanding."* More literally, it tran- 
scends every mind, every attempt of the strongest intel- 
lect to realize its qualities and to describe it as "keeping 
guard over our hearts and thoughts in Christ Jesus," i. e., 
so long as we retain faith, the vital link of union with 
the Prince of Peace. What power has he to calm the 
troubled spirit! He can say to its warring passions, its 
cringing fears, its clamorous desires as he said to the 
winds and waves of the sea of Galilee, "Peace, be still," 
and there will be a heavenly calm in that soul. Breth- 
ren beloved, I know whereof I affirm. The once stormy 
Galilean sea within me has heard that voice divine and 
a blessed calm has ensued. Jesus is the great Peace- 
maker in tempest-tossed souls. 

" Jesus protects ; my fears begone : 
What can the Rock of Ages move? 
Safe in thy arms I lay me down, 
Thine everlasting arms of love." 

This peace is genuine and no sham. Jesus called it "my 
peace" in contrast with the world's hollow peace. The 
Oriental salutation, Salaam, salaam, Peace, peace, like 
all compliments, had degenerated into an empty and in- 
sincere form. But the salaam of Jesus is sky-born, the 
first instalment of that everlasting rest that awaits all 
the children of God. This undisturbed repose of the 
soul we may have in this life. How blessed it would be 
if every regenerated soul were panting after this rest! 

" O that I might at once go up, 
No more on this side Jordan stop, 
But now the land possess. 

******* 

*Phil. lv. 7. 



128 JESUS EXULTANT. 

There dwells the Lord our righteousness, 
And keeps his own in perfect peace 
And everlasting rest." 

Jesus intimated the superiority of his peace to that of 
the world. His peace inheres in the soul filled with the 
Holy Spirit. The world's peace is determined by out- 
ward things and is as changeable as external conditions. 

The English discoverer, Drake, and his men from the 
top of the Isthmus of Panama saw below them westward 
a placid sea so fair and still that they called it the Pacific 
Ocean. It was a calm day and the sea appeared smoother 
because of the height from which it was seen. It is easy 
to profess to enjoy peace on fine days "when we are high 
above all trouble; but our test must be when we are in 
the midst of the waters, when the waves thereof roar and 
are troubled. Is it Pacific Ocean then; or do we find as 
may be those early adventurers did, that it was too 
hastily named?" 

Every Christian needs this heavenly peace. Seek him 
who is our peace. Cry after peace as the almost frantic 
Greek poet amid the ceaseless wars which desolated the 
states of Greece breaks out in prayer to the goddess of 
peace, "Irene, Irene, descend from heaven upon our dis- 
cords and wretchedness." Thus pray for the descent of 
the peace of Christ to heal the troubled heart. 

But great as is the blessedness of peace, Paul intimates 
that the kingdom of God affords a richer banquet. We 
have three degrees of beatitude set before us, rising like 
a climax : righteousness is good, peace is better and joy in 
the Holy Ghost is best of all, the crowning grace which 
God has to bestow on believers in his adorable Son. It 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 129 

is the link which unites us with God. It is the first in- 
stalment of heaven paid on earth in advance. This is 
more than the joy which is the natural sequence of right 
doing. The approval of conscience is the lowest degree 
of the joy of righteousness. If the act be not merely 
right but beneficent, if we have by sacrifice benefited 
some person, the joy rises in quality and intensity. ^ 
Hence the generous deeds of the unregenerate are to^^ 
them a source of felicity. This arises from the very con- 
stitution of human nature. Happiness and virtue are 
not divergent but parallel lines. We are as moral beings 
so constituted that joy must follow the exercise of benev- 
olence. This joy is natural. But the joy of the Holy 
Ghost is supernatural. It is handed down direct from 
the Giver of all good gifts through the agency of the 
Holy Spirit. It flows not in the channels of nature, but 
is a fruit of the Spirit. Paul intends to discriminate be- 
tween the natural joy of rectitude and this heavenly joy 
in Christian experience by styling it the joy of the Holy 
Ghost. It attends his residence in the soul. For there 
is a mystery next the three-fold personality in the unity 
of the divine nature, the two-fold personality of the 
believer, the human interpenetrated by the divine per- 
sonality inhabiting it as his temple. This miracle of the 
fulness of the Spirit was first manifested in Adam in 
Eden when the breath of God conveyed not merely ani- 
mal and intellectual life, but spiritual life resulting from 
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Sin dissolved this 
mysterious union and the heavenly personage withdrew^ 
from his polluted sanctuary. From being filled with joy 
pervading every capacity, Adam became desolate indeed. 



130 JESUS EXULTANT. 

The supremely blessed became supremely wretched. 
To be sundered from God, the fountain of bliss, is hell. 
When sin entered the soul of Adam that deep celestial 
spring ceased to send up its refreshing waters, and he 
became the subject of intense thirst. His posterity born 
in his fallen image share also his tormenting thirst. 
They all flew from spring to spring of sensual pleasure, 
but still they thirsted till Jesus stood up in this spiritual 
Sahara and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come to 
me and drink." The satisfying nature and the inex- 
haustible abundance of the water of life are intimated in 
the fact that out of the believer shall flow, not drops as 
from a spile, not brooks which dry up in the summer's 
heat, but rivers, Amazons and Mississippis of living 
water. Then John, in a blessed parenthesis, for which 
I mean to thank him when I shake hands with him in 
heaven, strips off the imagery and tells us in plain words 
that Jesus is describing the joy of the Holy Spirit, who 
was not yet given in pentecostal fulness. To this foun- 
tain Jesus sets a perpetual finger-point in his last words 
in the Bible, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come, . . . 
and take the water of life freely." 

It is thought by some that Jesus teaches the woman 
at the well the impossibility of losing our relish for this 
water, and hence the impossibility of a total and final 
apostasy. This doctrine of the final perseverance of the 
saints, the best annotators do not find in this utterance 
of Christ. Says Bengel, "Truly that water, as far as it 
depends on itself, has in it an everlasting virtue; and 
when thirst returns, the defect is on the part of the man, 
not of the water," This is clearly seen in the Greek, 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 131 

generally, in the 'New Testament. Where believing is 
spoken of as the condition of salvation the tense indi- 
cates continuity and not a single act. "If any man 
thirst, let him be constantly coming unto me and be 
always drinking. Out of him who perseveringly believes 
in me shall flow rivers of living waters."* 

The peace of Christ and the joy in the Holy Ghost de- 
pend on persistent, appropriating faith. The perpetual 
fulness of the Spirit resulting from this kind of faith is 
the condition of fulness of joy. The joy inspired by the 
Spirit is unique. It is totally unlike natural gladness 
such as arises in worldly men when their corn and wine 
are increased. Hence it is indescribable. A simple emo- 
tion cannot be defined. You may talk forever of the 
peculiar emotion of the young mother who feels the first 
pulsation of maternal love, when her first-born child is 
laid in her bosom. The feeling must be forever un- 
known except to those who have had such an experience. 
It is so with every kind of emotion. We can describe it 
only by stating under what circumstances it arises. If 
you have never been in those circumstances the person 
who speaks of such an emotion speaks to you in an un- 
known tongue. The joy of the Holy Ghost is to an 
unbeliever as vague and meaningless as the colors of the 
rainbow described to one born blind. The world is not 
rushing to obtain this joy, because it is to them perfectly 
unreal. Why should they not reject the effect when they 
disbelieve in the cause, the Holy Spirit, "whom the world 
cannot receive because they see him not" with their 
bodily eyes, all the organ of vision they have, in the 
absence of the eye of faith. The demand is sometimes 

* John vii. 37, 38. 



J 



132 JESUS EXULTANT. 

made that the Christian should explain his spiritual joy in 
terms understood by unregenerate minds. The demand is 
as impossible and as unphilosophical as the description of 
H:he taste of oranges would be to a Laplander who never 
saw this tropical fruit. The joy of the Holy Ghost must 
always be attested by its possessor in language which is an 
unknown tongue to the unregenerate. They can have the 
testimony translated to their spiritual intuition only by 
visiting the house of the Interpreter as did Bunyan's 
pilgrim. The glorious dreamer in Bedford jail was on 
intimate terms with this interpreter whose office it is 
to take of the things of Christ and to declare them to 
believers whose souls are open upward to receive the 
personal Paraclete. The joy inspired by his indwelling 
is intense, "unutterable and full of glory," the highest in 
degree and the purest in kind which the human soul can 
experience in this world or in the world to come. For 
the bliss of heaven comes from union with God, and the 
Holy Spirit in us effects that union. That the joy of 
heaven is a continuation of the "joy of the Holy Ghost" 
experienced on the earth is implied in the wonderful 
words of Christ to the Samaritan woman, "But the water 
that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water 
springing up into everlasting life." Yerily, verily I say 
unto you, He that heareth, i. e., continually obeyeth my 
word, and perseveringly believeth on him that sent me 
hath present and eternal well-being. His joy will be as 
lasting as his obedient trust, and it will be of the same 
kind in both worlds. The same truth is expressed in the 
earnest of the Spirit. The Spirit enjoyed here is a pledge 
of our full heavenly reward. But it is customary to pay i 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 133 

the full wages in the coin with which the earnest, the 
money paid down to bind the bargain, was paid. This 
is the spirit of adoption, the first instalment of heaven. 
No Christian need die to have the secret of heavenly 
bliss divulged to him. If he claims his full heritage in 
Christ he has a slice of heaven for his daily rations while 
journeying to heaven. And this is the best surety of 
heaven. That was a wise woman whom I once heard 
in love-feast testifying thus, "I am carrying heaven with 
me on the way so as to be sure that I shall have it at the 
end of the journey." In the experience of the inward 
joy of the abiding Comforter the jubilant shout is often 
necessary as a safety-valve. But those whose sense of 
propriety is so extreme as to tie down the safety-valve 
i find relief in the apostolic injunction, "Is any merry? 
. Let him sing psalms." * The revisers do not limit the 
, singer to the Hebrew psalms : "Is any cheerful, let him 
sing praise." Singing and making melody with the heart 
i to the Lord is the natural expression of the heart filled 
with the Spirit, f 

Many modern Christians become so highly cultivated 
i and refined in their taste as to rebuke the spontaneous 
i hymn breaking out in the pews, independent of the 
, chorister's tuning fork or the organist's keynote, and to 
; take offence at the amen or hallelujah in the congrega- 
: tion not printed in the ritual. They deem such freedom 
unbecoming the dignity and solemnity of Christian wor- 
! ship. It is possible that the Spirit, who dwells only where 
3 there is liberty, departs from those assemblies which at- 
tempt to imprison him in stiff forms. He desires to 
r develop individualities by bestowing different gifts sev- 

* James v. 13. t Eph. v. 19. 



134 JESUS EXULTANT. 

erally on whomsoever he will. Dr. Stalker says that the 
prophets addressed only nations, bnt Jesus Christ dis- 
covered the individual. This latest discovery it is the 
office of the Holy Spirit to create anew, preserving all 
original traits so far as they are innocent. Men are not 
at their best when pruned of all personal peculiarities. 
Grace is not a die which makes all souls alike like dollars 
dropping from the mint. There is the same variety in 
the new creation as there was in the original creation. 
There should be the same variety in the expression of 
Christian experience. Let not the quiet find fault with 
the exultant. Let all the people praise the Lord, each in 
his own natural way. 

The notion is widely prevalent that an emotional 
religion must be fitful and unstable. It is true that feel- 
ing excited by appeals to the sensibilities only, without 
any inculcation of truth upon the intellect, is to be depre- 
cated. This results in a Christian character described 
by Christ as the stony-ground hearer that hears the word, 
and anon with joy receives it, but having no root in him- 
self he endures only for a while. The failure is not to 
be ascribed to the joy, but to the lack of deep moral con- 
victions resulting from a reception of Christian truth 
used by the Holy Spirit as a subsoil ploughshare breaking 
up the fallow ground of the heart as a preparation for 
a spiritual life which will grow more and more robust 
as persecutions and tribulations increase. Scholarly 
men are apt to think that feeling stands on a lower plane 
than the understanding and that it is not consistent with 
large thinking powers. Hence comes the error which 
spoils so much preaching — aiming at the head instead 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 135 

of the heart. It is thought that he who addresses the 
emotions and melts his hearers to tears is not so great as 
the master of syllogisms who welds a flawless chain of 
argument. Hence the tendency of the schools is to 
repress feeling and to intensify the dry intellect; 
whereas few people reason while all feel. All popular 
preaching takes the line of the sensibilities. The great 
orators of the ages have been emotional men. Study the 
sermons of Whitefield, Spurgeon, Beecher and Simpson 
and you will find them all mastering men's wills through 
appeals to feeling based on truth clearly presented to the 
intellect. Christianity addresses the whole man. Such 
fundamentals as the atonement, the day of judgment, 
heaven and hell, are adapted to awaken a torrent of 
emotion so strong as to move the will to right action. 
Sinai trumpets its alarm to fear, while Calvary tenderly 
speaks to gratitude and hope. The preacher has a 
message which can satisfy the strongest intellect and yet 
sway men of low degree, the illiterate, the barbarian, 
the savage. The intellectual dwarf, "who thinks the 
moon no larger than his father's shield," can believe in 
Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners, and be quickened 
into spiritual life, be filled with the joy of the Holy 
Ghost and be lifted to an immeasurably wider horizon of 
thought.* Again how true is the scripture, "The joy of 
the Lord is your strength." How many Christians miss 
the secret of spiritual power. They are weak to resist 
temptation, and lack power to draw others to Christ. 

*"A11 true spiritual life must widen the soul; the more we live with 
Jesus, the more impossible will it be for any of us to be narrow. Our little- 
ness takes refuge with God, and his greatness makes its abode with us; we 
offer him our hearts barren of sympathy and deficient in affection, and pres- 
ently we find the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost 
that is given to us."— J. Rendel Harris. 



136 JESUS EXULTANT. 

There is much friction to overcome in themselves. The 
oil-can is as necessary to the continuous motion of the 
train as is the piston-rod, for without oiling the machin- 
ery would soon be destroyed. Christian joy is to the 
believer both impulse and lubrication. It is not work 
that kills, but worry. There is much less danger that a 
joyful Christian minister will wear out by his excessive 
labor than that a dry, unanointed, emotionless preacher 
will be used up by the friction of his unoiled machinery. 
The joy of the Holy Ghost neutralizes physical pain, 
cheers in sickness, comforts in penury, lightens every 
burden and makes Christian labor fruitful. The joy 
of the Holy Spirit lifts the soul above the most depress- 
ing circumstances. Three days after the battle of 
Gettysburg a wounded and dying officer was found in a 
stable into which he had crawled, shouting happy. 
Yv T ithout food, without water to quench his thirst in- 
tensified by his loss of blood and by the heat of July; 
without human companionship, with the prospect of 
dying alone without the means of sending his farewell 
message to the loved ones at home, he testified that so 
great was his Christian joy the days spent in that stable 
were the happiest of his whole earthly life. It was the 
presence of the Holy Ghost in their hearts which enabled 
Christians in apostolic times, and Methodists in the 
"black country" in England, whose houses were plun- 
dered and furniture carried off by persecuting mobs in 
the days of Wesley, to take joyfully the spoiling of their 
goods, knowing that they had their own selves for a 
better possession (Heb. x. 34, E. V., margin) here in the 
present life. 



THE KINGDOM OP GOD. 137 

We may therefore, in view of the three stages of 
Christian experience, regard the kingdom of heaven as 
a three-storied temple founded on the corner-stone Jesus 
Christ. The lower story embraces all in every nation 
who fear God and work righteousness but, like Cor- 
nelius, are so encompassed with the doubts and fears of 
their legal service as to be void of the peace given by 
assurance. These are mostly those who are in the early 
stage of Christian experience, in which the witness of 
the Spirit is intermittent, a ray of sunshine through the 
rifted clouds, followed by days and weeks of a sky com- 
pletely overcast. There are also found here those who 
have the spirit of faith and the purpose of righteousness, 
whose attitude toward the unknown Saviour is that of 
readiness to accept him and his law of life as soon as he 
may be presented. These are servants of God but not 
yet sons. They are safe because they are on the rock 
"though they know him not " (Wesley). Yet they are 
exposed to great discouragements because of the joyless- 
ness of their service. For it is human to leave an irk- 
some course of life. Moreover, those who dwell in this 
lowest department are nearer to the inviting fields of 
worldly pleasure whose perfumes regale the senses and 
deaden their feeble spiritual life. 

But a broad staircase leads up from this room to the 
apartment of peace, and the Lord of the temple is con- 
stantly inviting the dwellers below to ascend, and some 
are daily urging their way upward from the place of 
servants into the place of sons, the place of peace. Here 
also dwell Gratitude and her sister, Hope. Doubt and 
fear and fierce temptation, although they sometimes 



138 JESUS EXULTANT. 

steal into this room, do not abide there. There is 
too much sunshine for these bats and owls, birds of dark- 
ness, and too much jubilant music warbling from the 
lips of these sons of God. 

" Lord, how secure and blest are they 
Who feel the joys of pardoned sin ! 
Should storms of wrath shake earth and sea, 
Their minds have heaven and peace within." 

Yet there is an apartment still higher up in this 
temple of the Lord to which a pleasant and gentle voice 
invites the sons and daughters in the parlor below. 
This upper room is reached not by a staircase but by an 
elevator. It is the apartment of the abiding Comforter. 
Joy fills and floods it. Here dwell a quartet of noble 
sisters, Love, Purity, Gladness and Assurance. From 
their countenances a solar light is diffused through all 
the room. Sorrow cannot dwell in their presence. The 
blessed Paraclete pours upon each head the oil of glad- 
ness. Here is the fountain from which he who persever- 
ingly drinks will thirst no more to all eternity. He will 
find this water within himself a self-sustained fountain 
springing up to everlasting life. Here Jesus spreads his 
richest banquet and his banner over the feast is love. 

" Blest Saviour, what delicious fare ! 
How sweet thine entertainments are ! " 

Here every morning the occupants find manna showered 
from heaven, for there is no roof to this apartment save 
the serene and bright blue sky wherein the sun of right- 
eousness ceaselessly shines all the year. 

The dwellers here have a clear view of the upper 
world, a land of promise more glorious than burst upon 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 139 

the vision of Moses on Pisgah. His was full of foes; 
theirs is full of friends. His was to be conquered by 
bloodshed; theirs is already purchased by the blood of 
sprinkling. 

Through the clear, Italian atmosphere the morning 
bells of the new Jerusalem are ringing. This is the 
natural place to be translated from, and some are every 
hour stepping into Elijah's chariot and going up with 
a shout through the open portals of that beautiful city. 
Translations may take place from the lower stories, but 
this is not the natural order. It is the divine will that 
every inhabitant of this temple should get as near as 
possible to heaven before his translation. Progress is 
the law of his kingdom. Hence the inhabitants of the 
roofless apartment where joy abides are generally mature 
in years. Yet some youths following undeviatingly the 
leading of the Holy Spirit have found themselves sud- 
denly lifted to the lofty tableland of purity and joy 
where a long and happy life awaits them before their 
translation to their eternal mansion. Thrice and four 
times blessed are they who in life's morning mount up to 
this blessed altitude of Christian experience and spend 
all their future years in this pure and bracing atmos- 
phere above the storms and clouds. 

How many will this apartment of the Lord's temple 
contain? Should all the tenants of the lower stories 
ascend to-day they would find ample room. 

" There's a wideness in God's mercy 
Like the wideness of the sea." 

To every believer did Christ give his gracious command, 



140 JESUS EXULTANT. 

"Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." 
To restrict this promise of fulness of joy to only a few of 
the many who pray is to destroy all ground of faith for 
anyone. Fulness of joy was not designed to be a rare 
and exceptional Christian experience. Ever since the 
day of Pentecost Satan has been busy in all Christian 
lands spreading the wicked lie that only a few favorites 
of God, one in a thousand or a million, can be victorious 
over sin and permanently dwell on the sun-lit summits 
of assurance and fulness of joy. Alas, the majority of 
Christians believe this falsehood and dwell ever on the 
lowlands of doubt and depravity, and ascribe their 
wretched state to their constitution or their circum- 
stances, in other words, to their Creator and not to their 
own failure to claim their full heritage in Christ. The 
promise of fulness of joy is to all believers to-day and 
to-morrow and forever, absolutely without exception. It 
is the business of your preacher to drive this lie out of 
both pulpit and pew where it has dwelt for ages, and to 
get men to believe Christ's glorious truth instead. It is 
encouraging to know that the truth is steadily mastering 
and exterminating the lie. Many are panting after a 
complete conformity to the image of the Son of God, 
crying, "Nearer, my God, to thee." Many in all the 
evangelical churches are claiming an experimental dem- 
onstration that the Holy Spirit can sanctify wholly and 
preserve blameless. Many are believing it as a doctrine 
and attesting it by a joyful experience. When this be- 
comes general in Protestant churches their oneness in 
spirit will be complete and the prayer of our Saviour will 
be answered, "That they may be perfected in one." The 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 141 

chief obstacle to Christian unity hitherto has been a lack 
of love to the common Master. 

In conclusion we would utter this caution, Let no 
one throw away his Christian experience because it is not 
joyful. This is what the adversary of your soul desires. 
Are you a servant of God, fearing him and working 
righteousness? Thank God and ask him to adopt you as 
a son. Are you adopted and have the witness of the 
Spirit now and then ? Ask for the abiding witness. Are 
your peace and joy interrupted and variable? Ask in 
faith for the indwelling Paraclete in the plenitude of 
his grace. Take large views of God's mercy and benevo- 
lent purpose toward you in this life. 

Let Paul's cumulative phrases in the ascription at the 
end of his wonderfully comprehensive prayer inspire you 
to ask for large things, even to be filled with all the ful- 
ness of God: "Now unto him who is able to do exceed- 
ing abundantly above all that we ask or think, according 
to the power that worketh in us." This power is the 
personal Holy Spirit, the fountain of supreme joy 
through the inspiration of supreme love. Get an en- 
larged view of God's love as the ground of a larger faith. 
To this end study not only the Bible but the Christian 
poets. Let this spark from C. Wesley's glowing fire 
enkindle your soul: 

" O Love, thou bottomless abyss, 

My sins are swallowed up in thee ! 
Covered is my unrighteousness, 

Nor spot of guilt remains on me, 
While Jesus' blood, through earth and skies, 
Mercy, free, boundless mercy, cries." 



142 JESUS EXULTANT. 

What a tonic to weak faith is Whittier's apostrophe to 
divine love: 

" Immortal love ! forever full, 
Forever flowing, free; 
Forever whole, forever shared, 
A never ebbing sea." 

I never read Faber without a conscious uplift of soul 
toward Grod and a stronger grip of faith: 

" There's not a craving in the mind 
Thou dost not meet and still ; 
There's not a wish the heart can have 
Which Thou dost not fulfil. 

" O little heart of mine ! shall pain 
Or sorrow make thee moan, 
When all this God is all for thee, 
A Father all thine own." 

When I present my strongest reason why my petition 
should be granted, I quote an argument from Paul 
which has always prevailed and always will prevail while 
Jesus intercedes: "He that spared not his own Son, but 
delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him 
also freely give us all things?" After so great a self- 
sacrifice for me what gift necessary to the highest benefit 
of that sacrifice to me will he withhold? 

When I ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit in his ful- 
ness I never fail to quote that promise which has been 
fitly styled "the dawn of Pentecost," "If ye being evil 
know how to give good gifts to your children, how much 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 143 

more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit 
to them that ask him?" 

Where consecration is complete and faith is unwaver- 
ing and desire for the fulness of the Spirit in all his 
offices overtops all other desires he never fails to come 
and bring his all-cleansing power and the joy that is 
unspeakable and full of glory. 



144 JESUS EXULTANT. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE DAY-STAR IN THE HEART.* 
2 Peter i. 16-19. 

We have not quoted this passage of the Scriptures 
for the purpose of specially antagonizing the mythical 
theory of the Christian miracles advocated by a recent 
destructive German critic, David Frederic Strauss. Yet 
it is worthy of remark that Peter distinctly denies this 
theory in his declaration, " For we have not followed 
cunningly devised fables," or to translate the Greek 
word literally, " myths." We are not here to-day to 
construct an extended defence of the genuineness of the 
four Gospels. On this topic there are erudite, elabo- 
rate and exhaustive treatises accessible to you all. 
Nevertheless, we stand before you in the character of a 
Christian apologist, as you may infer from the scripture 
selected as the basis of our lecture. 

It is a painful fact that with several classes of men 
the gospel of our blessed Lord Jesus is practically re- 
garded as a myth. To those who, in utter disregard of 
the moral precepts of Christianity, wallow in sensual 
vices, Jesus of Nazareth is a vague and shadowy unre- 
ality, and not an authorized expounder of the moral law 
and its tremendous sanctions. Hence his teachings 
fail to sway their conduct, beautify their characters 

* Preached in the chapel of Harvard College on Sunday evening, May 18, 
1873, before President EJiot, the faculties and students of Cambridge Univer- 
sity, at the request of Dr. A. P. Peabody, in a series of sermons by represent, 
atives of various denominations. 



THE DAY- STAR IN THE HEART. 145 

and guide their lives. There are others, faultless in 
moral character, who walk in spiritual darkness, uncer- 
tain respecting all religious truth. These, through 
intellectual pride, disdain a revelation which addresses 
faith and does not ground itself solely on evidence ad- 
dressed to the reason. They assert that they would 
accept the gospel and square their lives by its precepts 
if it could be rationally demonstrated. For the benefit 
of both of these classes, and of those who manifest a 
chilling apathy and a culpable indifference to all spirit- 
ual truth as beyond their certain knowledge, we stand 
up to-day to lift our torch for the illumination of their 
dark path. 

Our errand to you this hour which you have kindly 
loaned to me is not to demonstrate to you that Jesus 
Christ truthfully reveals the Father to a race of sinners, 
for whom he died, and for whom he now pleads as the 
divine Mediator in his glorified humanity at the right 
hand of God, but to show you how you may, each for 
himself, make this demonstration, and henceforth plant 
your feet upon the immutable rock of absolute assur- 
ance of the truth of Christ, so that you will hereafter 
have no more scepticism respecting his gospel than you 
now have about the Copernican theory of the solar sys- 
tem, or the beauty of the solar spectrum seen in the 
rainbow. 

It is commonly asserted by Christian apologists that 
the demand for the demonstrative proof of Christianity 
is unreasonable, — that such proof belongs to mathe- 
matics only and is wholly repugnant to the nature of the 
gospel, which proceeds from beginning to end on purely 



146 JESUS EXULTANT. 

moral evidence, and that only a high probability, amount- 
ing to a moral certainty, can possibly be reached. But 
it is the purpose of this discourse to show that the 
gospel, beginning with probable evidences, leads the 
candid inquirer onward and upward till it plants his feet 
on the granite summit of assurance as undoubted as the 
axioms of mathematics. It is the business of the hour 
to show how fallible men on earth, encompassed by in- 
firmities and bewildered by false lights, may neverthe- 
less know the truth of Jesus Christ as certainly as they 
know the truth of the multiplication table. This is just 
what St. Peter has done in our text. He begins with 
the lowest species of evidence and rises step by step, till 
he reaches the culminating point, — the meridian splen- 
dor of a satisfactory and joyful certitude. 

The lowest evidence is that addressed to the senses. 
In all ages men have hungered for sensible manifesta- 
tions of God ; they have craved ocular and tangible 
proof of his existence. They have wished to hear him 
with their ears and see him with their eyes. Hence, 
image worship among pagans and paganized Christians 
is not surprising. It is the natural result of this desire 
to apply the senses to religious truth. In the dispensa- 
tions preparatory to Christianity, God often conde- 
scended to meet this desire of our unspiritual and sense- 
dominated nature by assuming a visible form of man or 
angel in his communications with his chosen people. 
The eye and the ear of Peter were addressed on the 
Mount of Transfiguration, when, as an eyewitness of 
Christ's majesty, he heard such a voice to him from the 
excellent glory, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am 
well pleased." 



THE DAY-STAR IN THE HEART. 147 

This supernatural manifestation may stand for all the 
miracles in the Old and New Testaments, certifying 
religious truth to the senses of the human race. We 
are not of the class of those who so magnify their own 
moral judgments and exalt their own spiritual insight 
as to look down with contempt upon the miraculous 
proofs of religion. It is customary with such persons 
to degrade the Christian miracles and to diminish their 
force by classifying them with the marvels and prodi- 
gies of the Greek and Roman mythologies as grounds of 
faith in the truth of the religion. The enormous fallacy 
in this classification is this, that the mythologies pro- 
duce the prodigies and marvels, while the miracles of 
Christ underlie the gospel as its corner stone. The 
prodigies depend for existence on the pagan religion, 
while Christianity depends on its miracles as its super- 
natural basis. 

Christianity is unique in this particular: it is the 
only religion which reposes on the supernatural for its 
corner stone. The purpose of miracles is to call atten- 
tion to the scheme of truth, and to produce an intellect- 
ual conviction of its divine origin. We are certain that 
miracles never directly regenerated any spectator, but 
they have induced an intellectual assent to those facts 
and truths of Christianity, which is the indispensable 
initiatory step towards spiritual reformation. No per- 
son can be born again except by the agency of the 
Holy Spirit. This is attained only through faith in 
Jesus Christ. This faith is impossible to one who 
denies the historical basis of the Gospels. Therefore, 
there can be no regeneration without an historical and 



148 JESUS EXULTANT. 

supernatural Christ. Wherever he is denied, the spirit- 
ual transfiguration of the soul spoken of by Jesus to 
Nicodemus is effectually precluded. 

St. Peter advances from the sensible evidences of 
Christian truth to the intellectual, — from miracles ad- 
dressed to the senses of a few spectators to the written 
word addressed to the minds of all men of all genera- 
tions. " We have also a more sure word of prophecy ; 
whereunto ye do well that ye take heed." We here 
rise a step and come to the purely logical proofs, in 
which there is no mixture of the senses. Prophecy is a 
miracle of knowledge, as the raising of the dead is a 
miracle of power. The exact fulfilment of events mi- 
nutely predicted centuries before, furnishes the premises 
for a logical inference that God must have been the 
author of the prophecy. When Jesus Christ came into 
the world his entire biography, comprising his character, 
works, teachings, violent death, resurrection and ascen- 
sion, was already legibly written in the Hebrew Scrip- 
tures, and had been for centuries, so that the best proof 
of his Messiahship could be attained by following his 
injunction, " Search the Scriptures ; for they are the} T 
that testify of me." 

It is this multitude of recorded testimonies, addressed 
to the reason, which makes the prophetic word a surer 
proof of the Messiahship of Jesus than any single iso- 
lated testimony addressed to the senses, though it be the 
voice of the Father sounding out from the most excel- 
lent glory. Every seer foresaw Christ, every prophet 
foretold him. « Unto me do all the prophets bear wit- 
ness," We fear that not a little of modern scepticism 



THE DAY-STAR IN THE HEART. 149 

repsecting the claims of Jesus Christ arises from a 
superficial study of that long line of harbingers who 
heralded his advent in terms so definite that they can 
be applied to no other person. Sagacious minds may 
detect tendencies and predict therefrom general results, 
as the keen vision of the first Napoleon saw only two 
alternatives for European politics, " Cossack or republi- 
can." But how different is this from presenting in ad- 
vance all the wonderful events in the checkered career 
of his recently deceased nephew, Napoleon III, from 
prison to power, from empire to exile. 

When Jesus, after his resurrection, would convince 
the two journeying disciples of his divine sonship and of 
his resurrection, he turned to the more sure Word, and 
" beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expound- 
ed to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning 
himself," prefacing his exposition with these words of 
rebuke, as appropriate to modern unbelief as to the weak 
faith of the disciples, " O fools and slow of heart to be- 
lieve all that the prophets have spoken : ought not the 
Messiah to have suffered these things and to enter into 
his glory ? " To discard the Old Testament when sit- \ 
ting down to a study of the New, is like the folly of 
burning up the key before you break the seal to read a 
letter written in cipher containing intelligence of ines- 
timable value. Though Jesus Christ is not a letter 
written in cipher, but a sun rising on a world of spirit- 
ual night, and shining by his own light, yet many, neg- 
lecting the prophets, — the morning stars, those heralds 
of the dawn, — imagine that all is still Egyptian dark- 
ness outside of their closed blinds and curtained win- 
dows. 



150 JESUS EXULTANT. 

But this evidence, important though it be, is the 
stepping-stone to higher and more satisfactory proofs, 
even to that promised demonstration at which every sin- 
cere and persevering inquirer will arrive. St. Peter ex- 
horts us to give earnest heed " to the more sure word 
of prophecy, as to a candle shining in a filthy place, till 
the day dawn and the day-star arise in our hearts." 
What is this day-star within ? What is this new evi- 
dence whose splendors eclipse all the preceding proofs, 
as the sunshine pales the candle dimly burning in a 
murky atmosphere ? It is no outward event, such as the 
second coming of Christ, or the shaft of death emanci- 
pating the spirit from the clay ; but it is a subjective 
change, a light within, a star arising in our hearts. It 
is the divine coming into immediate contact with the 
human, — the Holy Spirit directly revealing Christ to 
the consciousness, illuminating our spiritual intuitions 
and calling them into perfect exercise for the first time. 
For all our intuitions, whether natural or spiritual, are 
blind till the appropriate conditions of their direct and 
open vision occur. 

The abstract conception of space does not arise in the 
mind till the eye has gazed upon extended objects in space; 
the notion of right and wrong starts up only in the so- 
ciety of human beings in whom rights inhere. A hermit, 
from infancy to manhood, can have no notion of moral 
distinctions, as is shown in the case of the several wolf- 
reared men found in India. Each class of intuitive no- 
tions springs up only under its appropriate conditions. 
Hence the power of spiritual perception lies dormant 
till the illumination of the Holy Spirit affords the prop- 



THE DAY-STAR IN THE HEART. 151 

er conditions. Then Christ is manifest to the soul as 
the dispenser of forgiveness and the revealer of immor- 
tality. Jesus ceases to be a mere image of the repre- 
sentative faculty, a mere concept of the imagination 
derived from the Gospels through the memory, and he 
becomes a real and personal friend, with who m the soul 
holds mysterious yet delightful communion. Spiritual 
truth becomes a solid reality, and material things become 
shadowy and unreal in contrast. 

Assurance of sonship to God and heirship to the re- 
wards of immortal life take the place of former doubt 
and darkness. Well may this be so, " for as many as 
are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." 
But how do they know it ? By an inference of the 
logical faculty ? By an exercise of natural intuitions ? 
No. " Because ye are the sons of God, he hath sent 
forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, 
Abba, Father." " He that believeth hath the witness in 
himself." " The Spirit itself beareth witness with our 
spirit that we are the children of God." In all the 
Christian ages there have been multitudes endowed with 
this power of spiritual intuition, or rather multitudes in 
whom this paralyzed power has been revivified by the 
illumination of the Holy Spirit ; for clear, spiritual per- 
ception is the natural and normal state of unf alien man. 
Sin shuts out the light, and spiritual perception ceases 
till, through faith in Christ, the Spirit is restored and 
the joy of spiritual vision. 

This is the privilege of all who have perfect faith in 
Jesus Christ. In such the Spirit of truth, who might 
be denominated the Spirit of reality, because he makes 



152 JESUS EXULTANT. 

real to the believer's consciousness that which before 
was vague and unreal, — this Spirit of truth, the prom- 
ised Comforter, abides perpetually and is the medium of 
uninterrupted and full spiritual knowledge. Hence 
they are said to know God, to know the love of Christ, 
which passes all knowledge, — all comprehension by the 
mere intellectual powers, — to know the Comforter, for he 
shall be in you. The same spiritual apprehension lays 
hold of immortality. For we know, " that if this earthly 
house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building 
of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens." " I know whom I have believed, and I am per- 
suaded that he is able to keep that which I have com- 
mitted to him until that day." This quotation from St. 
Paul throws light upon the genesis of this wonderful 
kind of knowledge. It proceeds upon the maxim of 
Anselm, Credo ut intelligam, " I believe in order that I 
may know." As Professor Morse had faith in the elec- 
tric telegraph before he had knowledge of it, so must 
we have faith in Christ before we can know him as our 
personal Saviour. But St. Paul's faith converted into 
certain knowledge (epignosis) through experience lays 
the foundation for a higher trust, to eventuate in higher 
knowledge, so that he is persuaded from his past ex- 
perience that all his deposit with Christ will be sacredly 
kept. Thus the maxim of Abelard is verified, Intelligo 
ut eredam, " I know, in order that I may believe." 
Thus faith begets knowledge, and knowledge in turn 
begets faith, while the winged soul mounts up this 
Jacob's ladder from earth to heaven. It is the testi- 
mony of all whose hearts are consciously the temple of 



THE DAY-STAR IN THE HEART. 153 

Christ through the Spirit, that they grasp spiritual truth 
with a certitude excluding all doubt, just as the reason 
or faculty of natural intuition apprehends the first truths 
in mathematics. 

It has pleased God not to give this knowledge at the 
beginning of the search, but to reveal it in the process. 
" Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord." 
In order to test us in this state of probation, the 
heavenly maiden, Truth, first appears enrobed in the 
guise of probable evidence. If we persist in following 
her till we lay hold of her, we shall be surprised to find 
her apparelled in the faultless white linen of demonstra- 
tive proof. We have intimated that this elevation of faith 
into perfect knowledge takes place only in advanced 
Christian experience. Hence St. Paul, in Ephesians iv. 
12, 13, shows that the Christian ministry is designed 
for this very end, — the perfecting of the saints, till we 
all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge 
of Christ, — not two unities, but one, in the identity of 
faith and knowledge, — " unto a perfect man, unto the 
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." The 
faith with which the Christian life begins is to be 
merged into knowledge, and that, too, in the present 
life, for it is to be succeeded by the following results : 
" that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and 
fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine." 

Hence our Saviour says, " If any man wills to do his 
will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God 
or whether I speak of myself." There is something for 
you to do before gospel truth will burst full-orbed upon 
you, before faith will change into knowledge. You 



154 JESUS EXULTANT. 

must adjust your will to the divine will. You must 
cease to exalt your will as the sovereign law of your 
being, and you must accept God's will as your only rule 
of action. This gives the soul a new position, a helio- 
centric standpoint, where, standing in the sun, like the 
angel in the Apocalypse, the splendid harmonies of 
spiritual truth burst upon the rapt vision. To change 
the figure, evangelical faith in Jesus Christ removes you 
from the outside of the temple of truth to the interior, 
where you find the walls adorned with masterpieces of 
statuary and painting, and the windows, which to the 
external view were meaningless and blank, are filled 
with beauty and life. In the mellow radiance which 
streams through them, lo, the form of the Babe of 
Bethlehem, the image of the Man of Nazareth, the vis- 
ion of the cross, the agonized visage of the crucified Son 
of man, and the resplendent form of our risen Lord 
appear. 

To the worshipper within, the radiant Christ is in 
every window, where the spectators passing in the street 
saw on the unillumined glass no form, no comeliness, 
no beauty that they should desire him. Here we see 
the glaring absurdity of sceptics, who refuse to assume 
that point of view where the highest proof is seen ; who 
refuse to enter the temple of Christian truth by a per- 
sonal submission to Christ, and yet continue to cavil 
and to object to the gospel and to reject its author. 
Their criticisms on the defects of Christianity, especially 
its lack of evidence, are as much to be respected as the 
criticisms of a group of Sioux Indians standing on 
Arlington Heights and gazing on the Federal Capitol, 



THE DAY-STAR IN THE HEART. 155 

and declaring that its internal architecture is unfitted 
for the purposes of legislation, and that the historical 
paintings which grace the rotunda are not in accord with 
the laws of sesthetics. 

How beautifully and tersely has the wise Pascal ex- 
pressed the thought which we are endeavoring to eluci- 
date, and the duty which we would enforce. " The 
things of this world must be known in order to be loved, 
and Jesus Christ must be loved in order to be known." 
Says St. John, " He that loveth not, knoweth not God, 
for God is love." Christianity is an experimental 
science. It challenges you to try it. It says, "Test 
me, prove me." It says to every person, " O taste and 
see that the Lord is good." To the scornful caviller 
who asks, " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? " 
it replies, " Come and see." But if he refuse to come, 
he is most assuredly under obligation to accept the testi- 
mony of those who have gone and seen and are con- 
vinced of the divineness of the gospel. To multitudes 
in all the Christian ages Jesus has verified his promise, 
" To him that hath my commandments and keepeth 
them, I will manifest myself." It hath pleased God to 
reveal his Son in them, in their inmost consciousness, 
disclosing his love and his power to save from all doubt 
and fear and sin. 

What are men who claim to be honest and candid 
sceptics doing with this vast amount of testimony ? It 
will not do to impeach these witnesses by stigmatizing 
them as a herd of fanatics, enthusiasts, mystics, quiet- 
ists, pietists or Methodists, for among them are to be 
found the soundest, coolest, clearest, most discriminat- 



156 JESUS EXULTANT. 

ing intellects, — Chrysostorn, Augustine, Pascal, Calvin. 
Fenelon, Luther, Baxter, Bunyan, Wilberforce, Wesley, 
Fletcher, President Edwards, Pay son, and hosts of men 
and women equally competent to testify on this vital 
point. Not only is the volume of this testimony vast, 
but its character is unimpeachable ; it falls from the lips 
of saintly men, who attest their sincerity by toils, sacri- 
fices and martyrdoms, while heralding through all the 
world the glad evangel which the Holy Spirit has 
uttered within their hearts. 

On what natural principles is the career of Saul of 
Tarsus to be explained, — his sudden and marvellous 
transformation and his heroic life of sacrifice and suffer- 
ing, running the gauntlet through perils, prisons and 
stripes, to lay his head on Nero's bloody block, with the 
swan song on his lips, " I have fought the good fight, 
I have finished my course, I have kept the faith ; and 
henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of life, which 
the Lord will give to me hi that day" ? Such lives as 
those of Paul, Madame Guyon, Eliot, Brainerd, White- 
field and others eminent for service and suffering, cannot 
be explained on the ordinary motives of human action. 
They had a God-given message to communicate, and 
they were aflame with zeal to proclaim it to all. It was 
their own personal experience of the knowledge of for- 
giveness, of justification by faith, of the reality of the 
communion of the Holy Ghost, and of the efficacy of 
the blood of Christ to cleanse from all sin. 

This was the secret spring of their heroic actions, and 
this accordance of the life with the lip ought to convince 
the most incredulous. Is it candor, or is it a culpable 



THE DAY-STAR IN THE HEART. 157 

bias against the truth, which receives the concurrent 
testimony of twelve independent witnesses to a fact ad- 
dressing itself to their outward senses, and rejects un- 
hesitatingly the testimony of the same twelve witnesses 
to a fact cognized by their inward perceptions ? Will 
.not Jesus, in the day when he will sit as judge of the 
world, upbraid such persons for their "unbelief and 
.hardness of heart ," — the moral cause of their scepticism, 
g — " because they believed not them which had seen him 
[with the eye of faith] after he was risen." 
j It is no trifling sin to reject Christian testimony. It 

betokens a wicked aversion to the truth. Hence there 

,t 

.is no such thing as honest scepticism about Christ in the 
pase of a man who owns a New Testament and is able 
fco read, and is surrounded by witnesses whose lips and 
lives attest the divineness of the gospel. At some time 
jln his life he has wilfully neglected the truth and in- 
clined to error ; at some time he has turned away from 
2 bhe light and welcomed darkness, because his deeds 
.were evil. 

j The truths of the gospel are adapted to produce con- 
viction in every unbiased mind, as infallibly as the 
pruths of geometry are adapted to gain the assent of 
miversal reason. Infidelity springs from moral and 
lot from intellectual causes. " The fool hath said in 
ais heart, no God;" or optatively, "May there be no 
Grod." The reason for this wish is contained in the 
lext verse, " Corrupt are they and have done abomi- 
nable works." On the other hand, let there be heartfelt 
)enitence for sin, and a surrender of the will to God, 
ind a fearless, unquestioning following of the truth 



158 JESUS EXULTANT. 

wherever it may lead, and that soul, however dark and 
sceptical when it begins its search, will be led by the 
divine Guide, the Holy Spirit, to Christ, the light of 
the world and the life of men. 

Not long since an infidel was induced to pray. De- 
termined that his petition should not advance beyond 
his faith or his unfaith, he knelt down and cried, " O 
God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul." 
This short prayer and shorter creed were the first step 
in a pathway that shone more and more unto the per- 
fect day ; for the day dawned, and the day-star arose in 
his benighted soul. Let every unbeliever go and do 
likewise. God is no respecter of persons. " In the day 
that thou searchest after me with thy whole heart, I 
will be found of thee." Pray for light. Pray. There 
are hinges in thy knees, and words in thy tongue, and 
spiritual want in thy heart. Thus light will arise upon 
thy darkness. Then follow every ray of light which 
falls upon thy path. There is no other key to thy un- 
belief, no other stepping-stone out of the slough of 
despond. 

We have been on our guard against applying to 
Christian believers on earth the refulgent light, the 
assurance and certainty enjoyed by the glorified in 
heaven. There are objects which, so long as we abide 
in these fleshly tabernacles, we shall see through a glass 
darkly ; but the existence of God and our personal re- 
lation to his law and immortal life are not in that cate- 
gory. " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have 
entered into the heart of man, the things which God 
hath prepared for them that love him." This relates to 



THE DAY-STAR IN THE HEART. 159 

the manifestation of God to believers while in the pres- 
ent life. For the next verse asserts this fact, " But 
God hath revealed them nnto us by his Spirit."* Here, 
in this office of the Spirit, we find the reason for the 
strange announcement of Jesus that it was expedient 
for him to go away in order that the Comforter might 
come, — expedient that the great miracle- worker should 
withdraw in order that a higher kind of evidence might 
be enjoyed, — inward spiritual illumination, in the light 
of which even Jesus, the divine Logos, whom the disci- 
ples had seen and heard, might be manifested to them 
in his higher nature and mediatorial office. The Com- 
forter " shall testify of me." " He shall glorify me." 
" He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." 

Thus we have set before you the gradation of the 
Christian evidences, the sensible, the intellectual and the 
experimental, — a staircase leading from uncertainty to 
full assurance, and wide enough for the whole human 
family to ascend abreast. 

Here we find the law of progress running through 
the gospel : 1st. The outward evidence of miracles. 
2d. The purging of the film from the inward eye by 
the agency of the Holy Spirit, and the manifestation of 
the Son of God to the anointed vision. Hence we who 
live in the dispensation of the Spirit may enjoy a 
higher certainty of Christian truth than the generation 
who gazed upon the miracles of Christ. 

In this lecture it will be noted that we have widely 
deviated from Sir William Hamilton, who asserts that 
the existence of God and kindred primary theological 
truths are not objects of immediate knowledge, or, as 

* 1 Cor. ii. 9. 10. 



160 JESUS EXULTANT. 

he puts it, are " not facts afforded in the conscious- 
ness," but as being matters of inference from other 
facts, they belong to ontology, metaphysics proper, or 
to inferential and not to empirical psychology. 

All this is true of minds devoid of spiritual illumi- 
tion, as St. Paul says, " But the natural man receiveth 
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are fool- 
ishness unto him ; neither can he know them, because 
they are spiritually discerned."* But in marked con- 
trast with the natural man, the apostle asserts that 
" We [all believers in Christ] have received the Spirit 
which is of God, that we might know the things freely 
given to us of God. Which things we speak, compar- 
ing spiritual things with spiritual," or rather, " explain- 
ing spiritual things to spiritual men." 

Hence the wide difference between the doctrines of 
this lecture and those of the intuitional deists of India, 
of the society called the Brahmo Somaj, and of the 
advocates of the absolute religion, the American tran- 
scendentalists, both of whom claim that in the human 
soul there is by nature all truth necessary to the un- 
folding of the spiritual life, and therefore an objective 
revelation is a superfluity ; whereas we teach, that by 
faith in this revelation the soul climbs up to that sum- 
mit where, before the anointed eye, the landscape of 
spiritual truth, in all its entrancing beauty, is unfolded. 

" Rejoicing now in earnest hope, 
I stand, and from the mountain top 

View all the land below. 
Rivers of milk and honey rise, 
And all the trees of Paradise 

In endless plenty grow. 

* 1 Cor. ii. 14. 



THE DAY-STAR IN THE HEART. 161 

" A land of corn and wine and oil, 
Favored with God's peculiar smile, 

With every blessing blest. 
There dwells the Lord our Righteousness 
And keeps his own in perfect peace 

And everlasting rest." 

We have not gone beyond the sermon on the mount, 
" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 
Inward purity is requisite for spiritual vision. This is 
the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and sancti- 
fication, and is wrought in him who apprehends Jesus 
Christ as his personal Saviour by appropriating faith. 
This faith is only possible to one truly penitent for past 
sins, and who consecrates his entire being to God and 
His service. It consists of the assent of the intellect to 
the truth, the consent of the will to the law of Christ, 
the law of love, and the movement of the affections, 
yea, of the whole being, toward him in unwavering 
trust. 

The dogmatic elements of the faith that saves are 
very few: 1st. I am a lost sinner. 2d. Jesus is the 
only Saviour, able to save to the uttermost all that 
come unto God by him. 

Since Methodism is really no narrow sect, but what 
Chalmers styled "Christianity in earnest," we shall not 
be blamed for divulging the open secret of the early 
success of that spiritual uprising, which has quickened 
the pulse of our common Christianity throughout the 
world. Listen, and I will disclose that secret, for we 
have not taken out a patent right, and do not intend 
to. The secret of American Methodism is not in its 
doctrines. Arminius had lived and fought his great bat- 



162 JESUS EXULTANT. 

tie with Calvinism, and died ninety-four years before 
Wesley was born. In theology, Wesley simply ad- 
hered to the Arminian section of the Church of Eng- 
land. Nor is that secret to be found in the unique 
ecclesiasticism which this spiritual movement took on. 
The spirit existed before it embodied itself in a form. 
What is the essential characteristic of that spirit ? 

A young man of thirty-three, a presbyter of the 
Church of England, a fellow of Lincoln College and a 
Greek lecturer at Oxford, in 1736 went to the colony 
of Georgia as a missionary. Stepping on the shore at 
Savannah, one of the first men he met was the Moravian 
elder, August Gottlieb Spangenberg. Wesley asked 
his advice how to act in his new sphere of labor. 
Spangenberg replied, " My brother, I must first ask } t ou 
one or two questions. Have you the witness within 
yourself ? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with 
your spirit that you are a child of God ? " Wesley was 
surprised at such questions. They were new to him. 
He was at a loss how to answer. The Moravian con- 
tinued, "Do you know Jesus Christ?" This was 
easier, and the Oxford priest replied, "I know he is the 
Saviour of the world." "True," said Spangenberg, 
"but do you know he has saved you? " This question 
is the seed-germ of Methodism. For two years it lay 
germinating in the heart of Wesley as a mystery- " Do 
you know that Jesus Christ saves you ? " Then in an 
evening Moravian meeting in Aldergate Street, London, 
while a person was reading that faith alone justifies, in 
the preface to Luther's Epistle to the Romans, Wesley 
experienced an amazing change. "I felt my heart 



THE DAY-STAR IN THE HEART. 163 

strangely warmed, and an assurance was given me that 
Christ had taken away my sins, even mine. And I then 
testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my 
heart." 

Here is the secret. An assurance of sins forgiven 
and an open testimony before all. In other words, it is 
the rising of the day-star in the heart, and the opening 
of the mouth in confession. It is the immediate contact 
of the Holy Spirit with the human soul, affording a cer- 
tainty beyond a doubt of pardon and adoption into the 
family of God. 

This doctrine, written in all the evangelical creeds of 
Protestant Christendom, but lying dead and inoperative, 
or taught as the privilege of a select few, Wesley pub- 
lished to the vicious and neglected masses of colliers, 
sailors, soldiers, operatives and peasants ; flying like the 
angel of the Apocalypse, over England, Scotland and 
Ireland, preaching Jesus a living, present and conscious 
Saviour, in forty-four thousand sermons. 

This great privilege of the direct witness of the Spirit 
I gladly proclaim to you. You may each ever have 
within your own bosom a satisfactory and joyful assur- 
ance that Christ Jesus is your personal, present and 
perfect Saviour. The path to that blessed experience 
is not made by proud philosophy, but by humble faith. 
" Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, 
thou shouldest see the glory of God ? " 

In conclusion let your preacher say to the glory of 
the great Master, that he has not brought to you a mere 
theory. With him it is a Scriptural doctrine, .solidified 
by experience into adamantine fact. He is a witness for 



164 JESUS EXULTANT. 

Christ as well as an advocate. He has, like St. Paul, 
testified unto you the gospel of the grace of God. In 
his own search after truth, he has borne the lamp of the 
prophetic Word through the dark place, and given heed 
to that lamp till the day, the blessed day, has dawned, 
and the day-star of intuitive certainty has arisen in his 
heart, heralding the sunrise of that glorious state in 
which we shall see as we are seen ; when all the mys- 
teries of the future world will be unveiled and immedi- 
ately manifested to our clarified spiritual intuitions. To 
lead some darkened soul, bewildered by the sophistries 
of modern unbelief, into the perfect day of Christian as- 
surance, is the purpose of these thoughts and the prayer 
of him who has uttered them. 



THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. 165 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE WORDS OP ETERNAL LIFE.* 

These are the words of Peter, who was admirably 
adapted to be the spokesman of the Twelve. The prompt- 
ness, frankness and pertinency of his replies must have 
been gratifying to the Master. The occasion was one 
on which there arose a great secession from Jesus of 
many who had been attracted to him by curiosity, crav- 
ing for the loaves and fishes, and other low motives. 
A demagogue bidding for adherents, or an impostor 
eager to attach a crowd of followers would not have 
been so impolitic as to repel the throng of his partisans 
by distasteful doctrines and difficult requirements. 
This did Jesus. " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of 
man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you," — 
words purposely uttered not only to test the faith of 
the multitude and to sift them of their chaff, but also 
to emphasize the necessity of so appropriating him as 
to make him the source of spiritual life. For our re- 
ligious opinions are as much a part of our probation as 
our actions. Opinions are the roots of character. Per- 
plexed with doctrinal paradoxes and apparent absurdi- 
ties, vexed that they could not measure the sublime 
proportions of gospel truth with the foot-rule of reason, 
nor contain the shoreless ocean of divine knowledge in 
the gill cup of their finite intellect, they went away 
from Christ and walked no more with him forever. As 

* •« Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast 
the words of eternal life."— John vi. 68. 



166 JESUS EXULTANT. 

he saw the crowd coldly turning their backs upon their 
benefactor and best friend and going their returnless 
way, each to follow his own illusion, each to chase his 
own bubble, and all to perish at last miserably in their 
sins, a shade of sadness darkened his countenance, and 
with a momentary fear lest his remaining disciples 
might be infected with this fatal apostasy, he turns, 
perhaps with tearful eyes and voice tremulous with deep 
emotion, saying, " Ye will not go away too, will you ? " 
Appropriate indeed was Peter's negative response, more 
emphatic from its interrogatory form, " Lord, to whom 
shall we go ? thou hast the words of eternal life." 

These words, in the first place, represent the instinc- 
tive longing for immortality of all thoughtful souls. In 
this regard we have all had the same experience. 
When we have seen the grave receive the treasures of 
our heart, and have surveyed the horizon of the pres- 
ent life narrowing more and more closely about us, we 
have felt an irrepressible desire for a life beyond the 
tomb. This yearning of soul the savage evinces when 
he lies down in death with his pipe and tomahawk, bow 
and arrows by his side — the needed implements of his 
future pleasures and pursuits. The pagan sage gives 
proof of the same craving for a better life, when he 
carefully weaves together myths, fables and traditions, to 
make a raft of hope, upon which his spirit may mount 
and survive the coming shipwreck of death. True is 
it that in some this outreaching for immortal life is 
almost imperceptible. They have so besotted them- 
selves that they are careless of their souls' to-morrow, 
provided they are well supplied with husks for to-day. 



THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. 167 

But these are no exceptions. They have their lucid 
moments. There are rifts in the clouds of their deep 
spiritual darkness through which their thoughts run on 
to the future, and when as from a mount of vision 
they catch a glimpse of immortality — a view quickly 
eclipsed by the leaden thunder-cloud of fear. Even 
the forebodings of the wicked, springing up in the 
mysterious depths of consciousness, disclose secret in- 
timations of a future life. Few men unaided of reve- 
lation can demonstrate their immortality by logical 
propositions addressed to the intellect, but all can feel 
the yearning after it in their own nature as the plant 
vegetating in darkness instinctively turns its pale, pin- 
ing face toward the unseen sun in the heavens. 

Secondly, Peter gives distinct expression to that dis- 
trust of our self-guidance which we all feel with respect 
to the attainment of eternal life. In all minds which 
have not been spoiled by sophistry or puffed up by 
false philosophy and self-conceit, there is a spontaneous 
shrinking back from treading alone the unexplored 
continent of religious truth and a crying out for a 
guide. "Who will show us any good ?" Socrates, pro- 
nounced by the Delphic Oracle the wisest man of his 
generation, to whom we shall again refer in the pres- 
ent discussion as the best representative of the entire 
heathen world, on the day of his death, sitting upon 
his bed in his prison, when about to enter upon his 
argument for the immortality of the soul, exhorted his 
friends "to supplicate the gods for help while we take 
hold of one another's hands and enter this deep and 
rapid river." Deep and rapid indeed is the river of theo- 



168 JESUS EXULTANT. 

logical inquiry without the aid of revelation. Who 
feels competent, without supernatural light, to give a 
satisfactory answer to that solemn question which arises 
in every sober mind : 

u Soon as from earth I go, 

What will become of me? " 

Can any of us lay aside our Bibles, close our eyes to 
the life-giving words of Jesus, and then avow our 
ability to answer the cry of universal humanity : 

" Who can resolve the doubt 

That tears my anxious breast,'" 

by drawing aside the veil from that " land of deepest 
shade," and pointing out its crystal rivers, its sunny 
vales, its fragrant groves, and giving to each eager soul 
a title deed to some choice spot for a future home ? 
We know that a school of theological teachers has re- 
cently sprung up who magnify man's religious instincts. 
These teach that revelation is a superfluity ; that every 
man has within himself all resources for the discovery 
of essential religious truth ; that the Bible has been 
rendered obsolete by the progress of the race in theo- 
logical science ; that every soul is thrown upon its own 
spiritual instincts and impulses for guidance. As cer- 
tain authors publish books entitled " Every Man His 
Own Lawyer," " Every One His Own Physician," so 
those professed religious teachers would have every 
one his own revelation, every one his own inspiration ; 
or as others devise traps for the simple called " French 
Without a Master, in Six Lessons," " Latin Without 
a Master, in Four Lessons," so these apostles of the 



THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. 169 

new dispensation of " the absolute religion " would de- 
ceive their fellow-men with the finely sounding adver- 
tisement, "Religion Without Master, in No Lessons." 

Let us institute some tests of the religion of nature. 
What headway does the human soul make in following 
its own light? How does it solve the religious prob- 
lems which baffled the skill of all the centuries before 
Jesus Christ came? How is future happiness to be 
secured? The religionist answers, By living right- 
eously, doing good to man and loving God. But to 
find his answer he has committed a stupendous plagia- 
rism on the Bible. He has gone to it to awaken his 
religious instincts at this great centre of light and life, 
and then, like all thieves, he denies and decries the 
source of his plundered treasure. If the human soul 
has no need of going outside of itself to answer all re- 
ligious questions satisfactorily, if it has no occasion for 
using the self-distrustful words of Peter, "To whom 
shall we go ? " the best way of testing the question is 
to examine those who have never seen the inspired 
Word, just as we would test the brilliancy of some new 
lighting material by carrying the lamp out of the sun- 
light into the darkness. Go away with me for a mo- 
ment out of the resplendence of revelation in to the dark- 
ness of heathenism, and see how wisely, how purely 
men live. Here is a whole nation offering worship to 
an ox, an onion, a lizard. Egypt was at that time the 
most cultivated nation on the earth. The religious in- 
stincts of another people offer human slaughter for 
praise, rear pyramids of skulls to secure the divine 
favor, toss infants to crocodiles and burn widows on 



170 JESUS EXULTANT. 

huge funeral piles, and grind to powder the flesh and 
bones of living men beneath its bloody Juggernauts. 
The ancient Babylonians religiously required every vir- 
gin to surrender in Phallic worship that which is of 
greater value than all the gold and diamonds in South 
Africa ; while the Thugs of India actually waylay and 
murder as acts of religious duty. Dimly indeed burns 
the flame of spiritual instinct, and widely do they wan- 
der who follow its flickering and uncertain light. 

Death is a just ordeal of a religious system. How 
does the religion of spiritual instinct enable men to 
die? We are told that Theodore Parker, the great 
advocate of the absolute religion, as he styled it, lay 
down in Florence upon his dying couch in impenetrable 
gloom which his cold, barren and Christless theology 
had no power to dissipate. They who have advanced 
no farther than the religion of nature universally die 
without triumph. Said Socrates, that greatest pagan 
moralist, before alluded to, as the hour for drinking 
the hemlock approached, " The swan as it sees its end 
approaching, begins its most melodious song, and float- 
ing down the river charmed by its own music, meets 
death with dignity and composure. Man," said the 
dying philosopher, " should die with as much cheerful- 
ness as the bird." " But," replied one of his disciples, 
uttering the feelings of the whole heathen world, 
" death is a terror to us. It unmans us and fills us 
with dreadful fears. We cannot die thus. We have 
no swan's song with which to float down the river of 
life into the boundless sea of eternity." "Go, then," 
said that wisest pagan, with a sagacity amounting al- 



THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. 171 

most to divine inspiration, " travel through all lands, 
spare no toil, no expense, that ye may find the song 
which can charm away the fear of death." But those 
poor pagan Greeks, amid the splendors of that era of 
literature and art, sought in vain for the swan's song of 
victory over the fear of death. But four hundred years 
afterward the wondering shepherds caught from the 
glad angels a part of that song. Behold, we bring you 
glad tidings of great joy : to-day is born a Saviour, 
who is Christ the Lord. But the full song was first 
taught to mortals when Jesus opened his lips at Laza- 
rus's tomb, saying, " I am the resurrection and the life," 
and only a few years afterward there floated from the 
grated window of a prison in Rome the music of this 
complete and triumphant swan's song : "I am now 
ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at 
hand. I have fought the good fight. . . . Henceforth 
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness ! " 
Through all the centuries of the Christian church the 
triumphant deaths of millions with this song upon their 
tongues have attested the divinity of the gospel, " O 
Death, where is thy sting ? O Grave, where is thy 
victory ? Thanks be unto God who giveth us the vic- 
tory." At last Charles Wesley, in a moment of more 
than poetic inspiration, put the swan's song of the be- 
liever into a sacred lyric fit for a seraphic lyre : 

" Jesus, the name that charms our/ears^ 
That bids our sorrows cease ; 
'Tis music in the sinner's ears, 
'Tis life, and health, and peace." 

Such a test the pantheism of the Hindoo Brahmin or 
the American agnostic can never endure. 



172 • JESUS EXULTANT. 

• 

At another vital point do all systems of natural reli- 
gion fail utterly in affording to the guilty soul the as- 
surance of forgiveness. Here is a practical test. Does 
my religion save me now from the guilt, the pollution and 
the dominion of sin? Go and question nature until you 
are gray. Her lips will ever be dumb. Though Bishop 
Butler may find in the constitution and course of na- 
ture some faint analogies which may confirm the doc- 
trine of forgiveness when it has been once revealed, 
there is not in the whole range of nature sufficient light 
for the discovery and demonstration of this cardinal 
evangelical truth. 

The analogies of suffering invariably treading upon 
the heels of violated natural law with no provision in na- 
ture to arrest the penal consequences, strongly incline 
men to believe that jmnishment must inevitably, with- 
out an exception, follow the transgression of moral 
law. Hence paganism teaches that the penalty follows 
the sin as surely as the cart-wheel rolls in the footsteps 
of the ox. Socrates was so impressed with the cardinal 
doctrine of natural religion, that God is just, that he 
doubted whether God could pardon sin. The semi-pa- 
ganism of the liberalists and free-religionists teaches the 
absolute impossibility of the pardon of sin. In their 
estimation it would be plucking down the pillars of 
God's throne and subverting the moral order of the uni- 
verse. But turn to Christianity and you rind that not 
only forgiveness through faith in the atoning Saviour, 
but also the knowledge of forgiven sin, is its grand and 
glorious peculiarity. From the day the apostles went 
forth preaching to guilty men the knowledge of the for- 






THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. 173 

giveness of sins till this hour, there have not been ab- 
sent from the earth witnesses to the truth of this doc- 
trine. Millions have crossed the flood, and millions are 
crossing now who can say, " Being justified by faith, we 
have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

Our text demonstrates that a craving for authority in 
respect to religious questions is natural to the human 
soul and that Christianity is more than a system of ab- 
stract truth addressed to the reason, — it is a series 
of facts to be apprehended by faith. We hunger for 
certainty in matters of such vital interest and of such 
personal importance. The interests are of too great a 
magnitude to permit us to rest at ease without a clear 
knowledge of our relations to eternity, and without all 
possible safeguards about our future well-being. Un- 
certainty brings suspense and fear. How natural the 
inquiry, is there no person who knows how to answer 
our religious inquiries, whose word is of sufficient 
weight to give to our anxious souls the confidence and 
security of certainty? How reasonable, if such a person 
should appear on earth and display undoubted creden- 
tials, unrolling his commission written by the finger of 
God and enstamped with heaven's broad seal of mira- 
cles, that all mankind should hail him with joy, and 
hasten to sit at his feet, to drink in his words, and to 
submit to his guidance, laying their hands in his, say- 
ing, Lead thou me, O thou unerring guide, for I am 
blind. What a value in one word coming down out of 
heaven direct, distinct and authoritative on a question 
of immediate personal interest to us all — an interest so 
broad that it sweeps in the whole of the endless future 
of the soul. 



174 JESUS EXULTANT. 

See the perplexed Grecian moralist in his cell at Athens 
groping for light on the destiny of man, and finding no 
clear and steady blaze naming up from that heap of 
subtle reasonings, fables and traditions which Socrates 
piled up to illumine his own passage to the tomb and to 
cheer his lingering, weeping and inconsolable friends. 
How he cried out for a theios logos, a divine word, to 
shoot its steady radiance athwart their darkness, and to 
give the rest of assurance to their weary spirits. Such 
a divine Logos have we, who is the true light coming into 
the world enlightening every man. He hath brought 
life and immortality to light. He did not originate the 
doctrine, but he established it on the basis of Ms own 
authority. No wonder that Peter refused to abandon this 
light. Peter, who had left his fishing nets to go spell- 
bound after Jesus, Peter who had beheld the miracles 
wrought by his word, who had listened entranced to his 
revelation of things unseen, and who had gazed upon the 
transcendent glory and majesty of his Master trans- 
figured on the mount. This thirst for authority cannot 
be suppressed. It is ineradicable in the human soul. If 
men are deprived of the infallible word they must be 
provided with an infallible substitute. Hence Rome 
sways the rod of spiritual power over millions because 
she professes to speak with authority. Even sceptics 
themselves, who contemn the authority of Jesus as de- 
rogatory to the dignity of true manhood, distrusting the 
authority of reason, unconsciously lean upon one an- 
other. Voltaire, Paine, Parker and Ingersoll, each in 
his respective age does all the thinking, and the crowd 
of sceptics of feebler wing or weaker brain follow era- 



THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. 175 

venly in their track. Thus our boasted freethinkers 
think in the chains of a fallible human authority. Said 
a puzzled liberalist when asked to reconcile the conflict 
between Jesus Christ's pretensions and his moral excel- 
lence, " I must visit Theodore and ask him how he gets 
along with this difficulty." 

In my pastoral experience I once met an old infidel 
whom I invited to Christ. He attempted to sustain his 
irreligion by argument, but failing to do so by reason of 
old age and the habit which steals away the brains, he 
left the room in rage, but soon returned with the file of 
an obscure atheistic newspaper in his arms, which he 
handed me, saying, "There is something which will 
demonstrate that Christianity is false." 

Again our text gives expression to the desire of man 
for a book revelation. We are told that it is derogatory 
to the Infinite One to shut up his truth in the form of a 
book ; that the great God would never attempt to com- 
press his infinitude of wisdom by inspiring a book which 
shall be a fixed standard of truth, to" which a word is 
never to be added during all the generations of men 
down to the last syllable of recorded time. We have 
heard this outcry of rationalism against what it has con- 
temptuously styled " a book revelation," as belittling the 
majesty of God, tying His hands aod sealing His lips. 
As his objection is chiefly to the form which divine 
truth shall take, let us listen to the voice of universal 
humanity. Into what form do the various false religions 
of the world crystallize ? The form of books. What is 
the ultimate authority decisive of all the controversies 
of the polytheists? Books. Though these books are 



176 JESUS EXULTANT. 

filled with fables, cunningly devised, they preach one 
truth, that religious instructions in the form of a book 
are a want of the human soul. When I see multitudes 
f people eating chaff and husks, the inference is legiti- 
mate that they were created with an appetite for food, 
and that there is somewhere in the world a supply of 
suitable nutriment correlated to this appetite — a supply 
which these wretched persons have failed to find, and 
hence they are appeasing their hunger with worthless 
substitutes. Thus when I see two hundred millions of 
"Hindoos reverently studying their Shaster and their 
Vedas, and two hundred and fifty millions of Chinese 
religiously treasuring up their sacred books, the words 
of Confucius, and one hundred and fifty millions of 
Mussulmans devoutly repeating the Koran, the words 
of Mohammed, I cannot resist the inference that man- 
kind have an instinctive and ineradicable appetency 
for a book revelation of religious truth, and that the 
Creator of this craving has provided an appropriate 
supply of spiritual food. That supply is the Bible. 
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word 
which proceedeth out of the mouth of God. To supply 
the perishing millions of chaff-eaters, Jesus came down 
from heaven, saying, " I am the bread of life." This bread 
satisfies the hungry soul. The words of Jesus reported 
by the Evangelists feed our famishmg spiritual natures. 
We cannot be content with the doubtful inferences of 
natural religion and with the suspected traditions of 
paganism. We crave words, clear, distinct, authentic, 
the changeless symbols of immutable truth — words which 
we may study, and impress upon our memory, and hide 



THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. 177 

in our hearts, " that we may not sin against God's law," — 
words which we may hang over the tombs of our friends 
as a lamp of hope to dispel the gloom of death by their 
foretokenings of the daybreak of the resurrection, — 
words which we may bind as life-preservers about our 
souls when we wade into the swellings of Jordan and 
begin to lose our foothold upon these mortal shores. 
How empty the consolations of reason in a dying cham- 
ber ! How tame the utterances of the best philosophy 
when chiselled upon a tombstone ! 

Go with me to Mt. Auburn cemetery, beneath the 
shadow of Harvard College, where the inspiration of 
the Gospels is held the same in kind as that of Homer 
and Shakespeare. Here sleep the elite of Boston, the 
centre of American free thought. This monument on 
the left marks the resting-place of Spurzheim, the phre- 
nologist ; here on the right is the mausoleum of Channing, 
the philanthropist, who could not bow the knee to Jesus 
Christ in supreme worship. All around us are master- 
pieces of monumental sculpture. Draw near and read 
the sentiments inscribed on these beautiful marbles. 
How few of the epigrammatic verses of Seneca sparkle 
there ; how few of the " divine peradventures " of Plato; 
how many of the utterances of Jesus. Thus the high- 
est culture and the freest scepticism in the shadow of 
death do unconscious homage to Jesus. 

Go with me now through the graveyard of Salt Lake 
City where slumber thousands who were deluded by the 
American false prophet. None are the words inscribed 
here from the book of Mormon ; abundant are the words 
from the Old and the New Testaments — an unconscious 



178 JESUS EXULTANT. 

repudiation of the spurious scripture, and attestation to 
the truth of the genuine. Thus human ignorance, su- 
perstition and error, in the gloom of the charnel house, 
cry out after the oracles of God, a book revelation con- 
taining the words of eternal life. We might further 
speak of the necessity of revelation to furnish a pure 
object of worship and love through the contemplation 
and adoration of which, souls denied and deformed by 
sin may be transfigured into angelic purity and loveliness. 
We have not time further to elaborate this point. 

In the course of this discussion we have found the 
words of Simon Peter but the echo of the voice of hu- 
manity seeking after immortal life while distrusting its 
own self-guidance thereto. We have seen the religion 
of nature tested by the pressing wants of sinful man — 
the forgiveness of sin, and victory over the king of 
terrors. We have heard through all the earth the cry 
for authority in religious inculcations, and the unappeas- 
able hunger for a written standard of religious truth. In 
the light of this discussion we discover the chief mission- 
ary incentive. 

We are not here to-day to plead for Christian missions 
in the interest of civilization. We do not adduce the mo- 
tives of philanthropy to man as a being of the present 
world merely. Christianity is the grand civilizer ; Chris- 
tianity is the best benefactor of man, viewed as a mere in- 
habitant of this world, teaching the highest political 
wisdom to nations, and inciting to advancement in all the 
humane arts. But these considerations do not afford to 
the Christian world the chief motive to missionary effort 
and sacrifice. That motive is found in the fact that 



THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. 179 

without a knowledge of Jesus the millions of the pagan 
world must sit in darkness, groaning under distressing 
superstitions, degraded by the vices inculcated by their 
religion, with no rainbow of hope arching his future. 
Although he may be saved by the historical Christ, even 
when he knows him not, if he has the spirit of faith and 
the purpose of righteousness, it must be confessed that 
there is very little in his education and environment 
to awaken that spirit and purpose. 

Bad as is the pagan's creed, his character is generally 
much worse. The little light which pierces his dark- 
ness affords only a feeble motive to righteousness, yet 
enough to be the ground of his responsibility in the day 
of judgment. " So they are without excuse." There- 
fore " the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against 
all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men, who hold 
the truth in unrighteousness." Yet, thought Paul, these 
may be saved, and the divine instrument of their salva- 
tion is committed to my hands — Christ's gospel. Hence 
I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbari- 
ans ; both to the wise and to the unwise — terms com- 
prehending a large parish, the whole pagan world. 

This feeling of debt to all the Gentile nations was the 
spur which urged the apostle to press onward, that he 
might preach the gospel in the regions beyond. Paul 
was too honorable to take the benefit of the bankrupt 
act in view of the vast multitude of his creditors, as I 
fear many of our modern church members are inclined to 
do, appalled by the countless throng who cry to them 
for the bread of life, and tempted through covetousness 
to withhold their tithes from the missionary treasury. 



180 JESUS EXULTANT. 

We are debtors to every pagan on the earth. Our as- 
cended Saviour wills that the uttermost parts of the 
earth shall inherit the riches of his salvation, and he has 
made us, Christians of the nineteenth century, us, mem- 
bers of the numerous, rich and influential Methodist 
Episcopal Church, the executors of that will. Shall we 
as individuals, shall we as a missionary church prove de- 
faulting trustees, by refusing to communicate to all the 
heirs their share of the inheritance ? 

" Shall we, whose souls are lighted 
With wisdom from on high, 
Shall we to men benighted 
The lamp of life deny ? " 

Over the great subject of the evangelization of the 
heathen world the majority of the members of the church 
seems to be in a profound sleep. Here and there is one 
wakeful soul in the closet wrestling with God in prayer, 
and consecrating silver and gold to this great cause. 
Here and there one hears the cries of the pagan world, 
and says, u Here am I ; send me. But the membership of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church have not shown yet 
that loyalty to Christ's kingdom which they evinced 
to the national government in its hour of peril, when, in 
the language of President Lincoln, " She sent more sol- 
diers to the field and more nurses to the hospitals than 
any other church." We have during the past year 
failed to induce our membership to contribute the aver- 
age of two cents weekly to missions at home and abroad, 
for less than this was requisite to raise the million and a 
half of dollars called for by the Missionary Board. 
When this duty of evangelization takes strong hold of 



THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. 181 

the conscience of the church, we shall hear our member- 
ship asking, not how little can I give and keep up appear- 
ances, but how much can I give, and how little will 
suffice for my own subsistence ? Then every Christian 
mother will consecrate at least one of her children to 
the work of Christian missions — for even then the world 
would not be oversupplied with teachers and preachers. 
Then, like the Moravians, we shall have more converts 
in mission fields than we have church members at home; 
then thousands of our mammon-cursed churches, which 
imagine that they cannot adequately support their preach- 
er, will support a missionary in India as well as their 
own pastor. We are not chimerical, but simply pro- 
phetic. May many of us live to see the fulfilment. To 
hasten the coming of that day we must put on the spirit 
of the primitive Christianity. We must vividly realize 
and believe in our inmost souls that the sinner unsaved 
through Jesus' blood, whether in New York or New 
Zealand, is on his way to hell fire. We must divest our- 
selves of the notion that the pagan is as well off while 
bowing to his vile and cruel gods as those who live in 
the resplendence of the New Testament. This notion 
cuts the sinews of effort, hushes the voice of prayer, 
dries up the streams of Christian beneficence, and sends 
a death-chill to the very heart of the church. It is be- 
cause this baneful idea is leaking into the church from 
the subtle infidelity which pervades our literature that 
our thoughts have taken a controversial aspect somewhat 
unusual in a missionary address. If there be a quench- 
less missionary fire in the pulpit, there will be ceaseless 
streams from the pews to the missionary treasury. 



182 JESUS EXULTANT. 

Brethren, the only fuel with which that fire can be kept 
burning is a hearty faith in the word of God ; especially 
in the truth that Jesus alone has the words of eternal 
life. For there is none other name under heaven given 
among men whereby we must be saved. A belief of this 
will send us into our closets with Carey, to weep over 
the map of the world, will set the ministry on fire with 
resistless eloquence, and will arouse the church to the 
grandeur of her calling in this day of great events. 



THE SONS OF GOD. 183 



CHAPTER X. 

THE SONS OF GOD.* 

Men are not distinct individual creations like the 
angels, but a race descended from one human pair, j- 
There is a gulf between the human family and the 
most intelligent brutes which science cannot bridge or 
cross. Man has qualities which they have not — person- 
ality, reason, self-consciousness, moral perception and 
accountability, implying the Godlike attribute of free- 
dom to create his own character, and determine his own 
eternal destiny. The crown of man's being, the most 
distinctive dissimilarity to the highest order of beasts, 
is his spiritual nature, that splendid dome of his being 
with skylights opening heavenward, wherein he may 
commune with God and become a temple for the habi- 
tation of the Father and the Son through the Spirit. 
When I open my Bible I find another distinction: 
" The spirit of the beast goeth downward, but the spirit 
of man goeth upward." Hugh Miller, the celebrated 
Scotch geologist, was accustomed to assert that men 
are the highest order which will ever tread the earth, 
because the Son of God, who shared the Father's glory 
before the world was, has permanently united himself 
with humanity. The Logos, who was with God and 
was God, became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace 
and truth, — « God only-begotten " (John i. 18, R. V. 

* " To as many as received him gave he power to become the sons of God, 
even to them that believe on his name." John i. 12. 



184 JESUS EXULTANT. 

margin). This stamps man as the climax of all mate- 
rial creations. For we cannot for a moment entertain 
the thought that God the Father will ever create a race 
on earth or elsewhere in his universe which will out- 
rank his incarnate Son. This splendid inference of this 
Christian geologist crowns men with true nobility. 
Nevertheless there is a class of men who tower up in 
dignity above their race. Lofty as are the sons of 
Adam in the scale of being, the sons of the second Adam 
so far excel them as to be called by God priests and 
kings. They are as much above the children of fallen 
Adam as these are above the beasts of the field. They 
transcend them in moral and spiritual excellence. This 
in the estimation of God and the holy angels outweighs 
all other human perfections. The origin and peculiar 
attributes of these kings and priests unto God, which 
separate them from the sinning sons of fallen Adam by 
a gulf impassable to all the forces of nature, will consti- 
tute the theme of the present discourse. Let us now 
read our text again: "He came unto his own." Who 
were his own? Some say "the Jews." This is part of 
the truth. It was sad that one small nation should fail 
to receive its Messiah king ; but this is not the extent 
of the disloyalty. Isaiah, looking down the ages through 
the telescope of prophecy seven hundred years before the 
event, sees a universal defection. " He is despised and 
rejected of men," Jews and Gentiles. Howsoever unlike 
in other respects all nations are agreed in saying " We 
will not have this man to rule over us." Had Jesus 
appeared in conquering Rome, in sensual Corinth, or in 
refined Athens, and preached the same doctrines from 
the same text, — " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is 



THE SONS OF GOD. 185 

at hand," — he would have met with the same repulse. 
Were he to appear in the centers of our boasted modern 
civilization, so called Christian in the census report, — 
Berlin, Paris, London, or New York, — and the question 
of enthroning him over their municipal, commercial, 
social, and personal life were determined by the Austra- 
lian ballot, do you think he would stand the ghost of a 
chance to be elected lord mayor? It was humanity 
fallen and depraved which received not Jesus, the great 
Christmas gift of God to the world. Some of you may 
dispute this, and assert that Jesus opening his commis- 
sion on Boston Common, or Central Park in New York, 
teaching his gospel accredited by the same miracles, 
would be warmly welcomed by all classes, the rich and 
the poor, the high and the low. Said an English lady 
to Carlyle, speaking of the wicked rejection of Christ 
by his countrymen : "I regret that he did not appear in 
our own times. How delighted would we all be to 
throw open our parlors to him, and listen to his divine 
precepts ! Don't you think so, Mr. Carlyle ? " He 
bluntly replied, u No, madam, I don't. I think that 
had he come very fashionably dressed, with plenty of 
money, and preached soft doctrines palatable to the 
higher orders, I might have had the honor of receiving 
from you a card of invitation, on the back of which 
would have been written 'To meet our Savior.' But 
if he had come uttering his precepts, 'cut off right 
hands and pluck out right eyes, or be cast into hell fire,' 
denouncing the Pharisees and associating with publi- 
cans and the lower classes, as he did, you would have 
treated him as the Jews did, and have cried out, ' Take 
him to Newgate and hang him.' " Carlyle was right. 



186 JESUS EXULTANT. 

If Jesus the invisible Savior is to-day dishonored by 
the unbelief of a majority in every land, Jesus in bodily 
form, preaching in our streets his requirement of love to 
himself above that to our fathers and mothers, and love 
toward abusive enemies, even perfect love like that of 
his Father in heaven, and, amid a selfish world, de- 
manding self-denial and self-crucifixion, would he not 
be excluded from polite society as a disturber of the 
peace ? His own, the most religious and moral people 
on the earth, members of the only true church, received 
him not, with here and there an exception. Then said 
he, " Since the race descended from Adam has discarded 
me, I as a new Adam will raise up a nobler seed. I 
will not destroy the unworthy race forthwith, as Jehovah 
proposed to Moses to destroy the unbelieving Israelites, 
and from him raise up another nation. No ; I will not 
destroy, I will transform. I will show the superiority 
of my grace and wisdom by taking the very souls tainted 
with the deadly leprosy of sin, and restoring them to 
perfect health. The old race shall be the material out 
of which the new order shall be created. Beneath the 
ribs of death I will create life. Out of the blackness of 
sin I will bring the whiteness of holiness, in the case of 
as many as receive me." Hence by his mediation he 
procured for every sinner on earth the Holy Spirit, who 
would impart the gracious ability to repent and believe, 
to be regenerated and sanctified, and thus to become 
sons of God ; that is, to regain their lost likeness to God. 
To render the universal provisions universally saving- 
was impossible without an exercise of sovereignty de- 
structive of freedom and repugnant to the nature of 
holiness which must always be freely chosen by u as 






THE SONS OF GOD. 187 

many as received him." A few were waiting to receive 
him. A few who saw and heard him had received from 
the Spirit anointed eyesight that they might recognize 
the Son of God walking the earth in the form of man. 
To them gave he the power, the right or privilege of 
becoming the sons of God — the New Testament pre- 
rogative, a new patent of nobility. Jesus was the Son 
of God by nature; angels and Adam had been called 
sons of God by creation. But now for the first time 
appear in the universe sons of God by transformation 
through redemption. We do not wonder that the Jews 
attempted to stone Jesus when he claimed the title, Son 
of God, which no individual in the Old Testament had 
dared to do except the King of Israel speaking for the 
nation which Jehovah had called his firstborn. " Jacob 
have I called my son." Individually sin had plucked 
the crown from their heads. Neither Enoch, who 
walked with God, nor Abraham, the father of believers, 
nor any one of the heroic prophets dared to call himself 
a Son of God. This dignity, this endearing relation, is 
the special gift of Christ to those who by faith crown 
him Lord of all. Till he came in the flesh good men 
were servants not sons (Gal. iii., 23 to iv., 7). 

When a new race is to be created there is one from 
whom it is to be unfolded. The race of new creatures 
is mystically summed up in Jesus Christ as the entire 
human family were seminally comprised in Adam. Any 
radical change or break down in his nature is a down- 
fall of his posterity. This damage from the sin of the 
progenitor did not entail guilt on his offspring. Out 
of this damaged material the second Adam will raise up 
the order of the sons of God. He is the first term and 



188 JESUS EXULTANT. 

model of the series. All the forces and appliances of 
his Gospel have one grand aim, that men "may be con- 
formed to the image of God's Son, that he may be the 
firstborn among many brethren." In all evolution there 
must first be involution. You must put into the first 
term all that you expect to take out. This is what God 
has done in the gift of his Son. "It has pleased the 
Father that in him should all fulness dwell," all qual- 
ities divine and human requisite for the development of 
the new order. There is one word which exactly de- 
scribes this office. It is the Greek word archaegos, un- 
fortunately translated by three words in the passages 
where it occurs, — prince, captain, author. It signifies 
the originator, founder, leader, and first participator. 
If you desire spiritual life you will find it only in " the 
author of life" (Acts iii. 15) ; if you would have faith 
seek it in the author and perfecter of our faith " (Heb. 
xii. 2) ; if you would lay hold of " eternal salvation '' 
you will find it only in its originator (Heb. ii. 10, and 
v. 9). You have in these four texts the conception of 
Jesus Christ as the Head of this new order of beings. 
There is a chasm which no human power can bridge be- 
tween the humblest Son of God and the most eminent 
son of Adam as a natural man, because it is the gulf 
between spiritual life and spiritual death. Just as no 
man can change a particle of non-living matter into life, 
so no man can impart life to a soul dead in trespasses 
and sins. He needs the great originator of life. No 
fancied perfection in morals can quicken such a soul. 
The natural man, however cultured and free from vice, 
is still like fallen Adam. The child of God is like God. 
The difference is world-wide. A marked characteristic 



THE SONS OF GOD. 189 

of the true Christian, for which there can be no suc- 
cessful counterfeit nor compensation, is that he is "a 
partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corrup- 
tion of the world through lust." He has a nature like 
God's. He has love divine shed abroad in his heart, 
by the Holy Spirit given unto him. This is the princi- 
ple of the new life. The first heart-throb of the new 
born soul is love to God and to all mankind. This is 
the decisive test, " he who loveth not his brother is not 
of God. For this is the message that we had from the 
beginning that we should love one another. We know 
that we have passed from death unto life because we 
love the brethren." Love will manifest itself in service 
and sacrifice. 

Holiness is another of the moral attributes of God. 
There is no tendency in his nature to sin. The sons 
of God reflect more or less perfectly his holiness as a 
burnished mirror reflects the sunbeams. In this respect 
the Christian is at his climax when he has been sancti- 
fied wholly and filled with the Spirit. " Blessed be the 
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath 
blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly 
places in Christ, even as he chose us . . . that we should 
be holy and without blemish before him in love." 

But as if to end all controversy St. John sets up the 
infallible criterion. "He that is born of God is not 
committing sin. He that committeth sin is of the devil." 
Here is what Fletcher styles " The fence between the 
Lord's garden and the devil's common." No man can 
enter on a course of sin and retain his sonship. He 
may on the stress of sudden temptation commit a single 
sin, and through resort to the advocate with the Father 



190 JESUS EXULTANT. 

(1 John ii. 1) find forgiveness. He may enter on a 
returnless career of sin and be finally lost (Heb. vi. 4-8). 
But he cannot bind up these two contradictions, sin and 
sonship to God, in the same personality. Willful and 
persistent sin and the filial feeling Godward, or sonship 
to the holy Father, cannot be thus combined. 

Do you say that this test makes the number of the 
children of God on earth very small and sadly shortens 
the communion rolls of all our churches ? Be it so. It 
is best to find it out before the day of Judgment when 
"many will say" in vain, "Lord, Lord, have we not 
prophesied in thy name ? " Of the sons of God, who 
will be like him when Christ shall be manifested, St. 
John says, "Every one that hath this hope set on him 
purifieth himself, even as he (Christ) is pure." The 
same inspired writer declares that they in whom " love 
is made perfect, will have boldness in the day of Judg- 
ment, because as he (Christ) is (to-day in heaven) so 
are we in this world." Supply the omitted major pre- 
mise, " all who are in moral purity like the Son of God 
in this world, will have boldness in the Judgment Day, 
and we let the sunlight into St. John's logic. Then 
follow these propositions : " We are in this world pure 
as he is pure ; therefore we will have boldness knowing 
that the Judge will not condemn fac-similes of himself." 
How the monstrous idea became so widely spread, that 
the children of God are constantly sinning, having the 
root of sin in their hearts, and its fruit in their daily 
conduct, as long as they live, I can explain only on the 
theory that Satan himself has become a Bible exposi- 
tor and theological professor, going about pointing 
out all the perverted proof-texts which extenuate sin, and 



THE SONS OF GOD. 191 

teaching that there is no power in the blood of Jesus 
Christ to cleanse us from all sin this side of the grave. 

Another moral attribute of God reflected in his sons 
is truth. They are lovers of truth. They dig for it as 
for hidden treasures. Says Jesus, " Every one that is of 
the truth" — eager to follow wherever she leads — 
"heareth me." This is because he is the incarnation 
of truth. " I am the truth." The devil is a liar from 
the beginning of his career as an apostate angel. No 
falsity in the long run ever wrought anything but ruin 
and wretchedness here and hereafter, world without end. 

The great American showman used to say " People 
like to be humbugged." It is true that the multitude 
delight in fascinating delusions. This is Satan's great 
advantage in his contest with Christ for the eternal ruin 
of their souls. He is perpetually disguising sin and 
misrepresenting God's truth. Happy indeed are they 
who unmask moral evil in all its seductive forms, " who 
by reason of use (or habit) have their senses (mental 
perceptions) exercised to discern both good and evil." 
This the Bible calls u full age" or perfection to which 
it urges us to "press on" QR. F".). Hence the great 
business of the children of God who have been made free 
from Satan's destructive deceptions is, by instruction, 
warning, entreaty and testimony, to rescue from his 
snares those that are taken captive by him at his will. 
Most of them are so morally benumbed and insensible 
as to love their captivity, and even to hug their chains 
with insane pleasure. How great the contrast between 
their enslavement through Satan's devices and "the glori- 
ous liberty of the sons of God." The philosophy of faith 
in its relation to this "glorious liberty" can now be 



192 JESUS EXULTANT. 

clearly seen. God's intangible and invisible truth is the 
instrument with which the Lion of Judah breaks every 
chain. This truth cannot be grasped by our senses. It 
is above reason. It is made known only by Revelation, 
which is grasped and applied only by faith. Hence per- 
severing faith is salvation. Persistent unbelief is dam- 
nation. Such is the nature of virtue that God himself 
cannot arbitrarily prevent these issues. 

The sons of God in all essentials resemble their Leader, 
" the Lord from heaven." Note the points of likeness. 
Jesus was begotten of the Holy Ghost, the sons of God 
are born of the Spirit. He was circumcised in the flesh, 
they in the heart by the Holy Ghost producing entire 
sanctification, "the circumcision made without hands, 
in putting off the body of the flesh" (B. V.). This re- 
moval of carnal mindedness, which is enmity against 
God, takes away the barrier against perfect love, the 
requirement of the first great command: "And the 
Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart ... to love 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, that thou mayest live," i.e. have well-being. 
When he became a mature man he was baptized with 
water, and received the abiding Spirit and the testimony 
of his Father to his divine sonship. Thus do all adult 
believers at some time after the new birth receive the 
fulness of the Spirit permanently dwelling within, and 
constantly "crying, Abba, Father." They obey the 
mysterious command, " Tarry ye in the city until ye 
be endued with power from on high." As the second 
Adam was tempted, so do all who are in probation, being 
conformed to his image, dwell in the sphere of tempta- 
tion within arrow shot of Satan. Jesus was crucified 



THE SONS OF GOD. 193 

till his human life was extinct. St. Paul speaks for all 
advanced believers when he says " I have been crucified 
with Christ, alive no longer am I, but alive is Christ in 
me " (Meyer). Do you stigmatize this as the language 
of a mystic ? St. Paul was a mystic in the good sense 
of that word as exemplified in every age of the church 
by all those Pauline believers and Johannean disciples, 
who consciously commune with God through his Spirit 
dwelling in the temple of their hearts. As Jesus rose 
from the dead, so do all true Christians rise into new- 
ness of life, seeking the things which are above. As he 
ascended by a bodily translation, so shall all who love 
him feel the attraction of his person when he shall de- 
scend on his great white throne, as particles of iron 
move towards the magnet when it is brought near. 
" Then we which are alive, and remain, shall be caught 
up together with them to meet the Lord in the air." 
As Jesus ascended to the throne of his Father, so will 
all who overcome sit with him on his throne as he over- 
came and sat down on his Father's throne. 

These are some of the characteristics of the sons of 
God. - How broad the chasm between them and the 
most cultured and refined natural man, a stranger to 
the life-giving touch of the Holy Spirit ! There are no 
words in human languages adequate to express this 
amazing difference. The nadir is not more remote from 
the zenith than death is from life. Only God can cross 
this chasm and carry a dead soul to the shores of life. 
Do you say that you see no such difference between the 
un re gene rate and the regenerate, the children of the 
first Adam and the sons of the second Adam ? This is 
because you look at externals only. Both have the 



194 JESUS EXULTANT. 

same bodily needs of food and raiment, rest and exer- 
cise. Both are subject to sickness and calamities, and 
are alike under the sentence, " Dust thou art and unto 
dust shalt thou return after a life of enforced labor, eat- 
ing their bread in the sweat of their faces." The differ- 
ence is not outward but inward. The one is loyal to 
God and obedient to his law, loving his adorable Son 
with whom he communes by faith through the Holy 
Spirit dwelling within as the Sanctifier. The other re- 
volves around self as the center in the darkness of unbe- 
lief, refusing the great command, " Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart," and ungrateful to 
him avIio died on the cross to redeem him. The one 
seeks in all his acts to glorify his heavenly Father, the 
other glorifies himself only. The one has his eye fixed 
on the world above, the other sees only this world. 
The one aspires after spiritual excellence, climbing the 
ladder whose top reaches the open door of heaven; the 
other, muck-rake in hand, is eagerly amassing perishable 
treasures, not a penny of which will he carry with him 
to his eternal existence. The one throbs through all 
the mystery of his being with the pulses of a deathless 
spiritual life ; the other has no heart-throb of love to 
God, for he is spiritually dead, being utterly uncon- 
scious of those spiritual realities which fill the other 
with rapture. 

The sons of God on earth are princes traveling in- 
cognito through a foreign land. Their kingly features 
are recognized by the angels above, but not by the vul- 
gar and unbelieving children of men beneath, who have 
eyes only for pomp and show and the trappings of wealth. 
Even the Son of God himself, the Founder of this new 



THE SONS OF GOD. 195 

and glorious order, dwelt thirty-three years on the earth 
wrapped in the veil of humanity, and only a little hand- 
ful out of the teeming millions of people had keenness 
of insight sufficient to pierce that veil and discover the 
God behind it. Him before whom seraphs cover their 
faces and archangels bow in adoring worship, unbeliev- 
ing men spit upon and nailed to the cross. This shows 
how unbelief incapacitates for the appreciation of spirit- 
ual excellence, seeing no difference between those who 
love God and those who love him not. " Therefore the 
world knoweth us not because it knew him not." 

Again, the spiritual life, the grand distinction of 
the sons of God is inscrutable. It is a hidden life. 
" Your life is hid with Christ in God." It is true that 
it puts forth external signs in works pure and good. 
Yet these may be counterfeited, misjudged, or ascribed 
to unworthy motives, to gain social standing, improve 
the worldly condition, or to fortify credit. Thousands 
in Christian communities may from worldly motives ex- 
hibit the same outward morality, and the same benevo- 
lence toward the needy as do Christians. 

There is another consideration which makes it diffi- 
cult in this life to discern clearly between him who 
serves God and him who does not serve him. There 
are many counterfeit Christians, children of the devil 
masquerading as children of God. It will always be 
possible this side of the Judgment Day "to steal the 
livery of heaven to serve the devil in." 

All these considerations, together with the fact that 
many real Christians have some moral imperfections, 
and the very best of them have involuntary infirmities 
and defects, tend to conceal the real character of the 



196 JESUS EXULTANT. 

sons of God in this life, marching up to the open gate 
of heaven a race of kings, utterly unrecognized by men 
blinded by the glare of sinful pleasure. 

But there is a glorious reverse of all this. As the 
despised Jesus will one day appear in glory and majesty, 
attended by all the holy angels, so will all the sons of 
God stand forth in their kingliness, a circle of glorified 
brothers with Jesus in the center. " Then shall the 
righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their 
Father;" shine out as the sun from a cloud, their light 
here having been enfeebled and obscured by the causes 
spoken of above. " And they that be wise shall shine 
as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn 
many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever." 
There will then be a disclosure and coronation of the 
sons of God which will astonish a universe of spectators. 
" I reckon that the sufferings of this present life are not 
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be 
revealed in us." This glory is now veiled by the mortal 
body enshrouding it, the spiritual resplendence will 
then stream through the enswathement of the glorified 
body. Towards this great event the eyes of cherubim 
and seraphim, angels and archangels, principalities and 
powers are now looking with intense desire. " For the 
earnest expectation of the creation waiteth (with out- 
stretched neck*) for the revealing of the sons of God," 
vindicated, acknowledged, and crowned. The whole 
world will then " discern between the righteous and the 
wicked ; and they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, 
when I make up my jewels." Who are these thus 
ennobled? Their names are not found in Burke's 

* See the Greek. 



THE SONS OF GOD. 197 

Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage of the British Empire, 
but in the Lamb's Book of Life, "a book of remem- 
brance written before him for them that feared the Lord 
and that thought upon his name." They who have 
suffered with him will be glorified with him. " O Father, 
the glory which thou gavest me I have given them." 
" Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not 
appear what we shall be. We know that, if he shall 
be manifested, we shall be like him." How will our 
glorified Leader look? St. John took his photograph 
on Patmos, which he has developed imperfectly but as 
perfectly as possible with the poor chemicals of words : 
" I saw in the midst of the golden candlesticks one like 
unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to 
the foot, and girt about at the breasts with a golden 
girdle. And his head and his hair were white as white 
wool, white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of 
fire ; and his feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had 
been refined in a furnace." How different is this from 
the dusty traveler who sat wearied by Jacob's w r ell ask- 
ing for a drink of water, or fainting beneath his cross 
on the road to Calvary. Just as great will be the con- 
trast between the sons of God glorified in heaven and 
the sons of God toiling in obscurity on the earth, some- 
times hunted as outlaws, often wearied, often discour- 
aged, and always unappreciated and misunderstood by 
the world. What a glorious human brotherhood is this ! 
Other brotherhoods may sympathize with me in trouble, 
watch with me in sickness, befriend me in a strange 
land, attend my funeral, and drop a sprig of evergreen 
into my grave. But here is a brotherhood which will 
love me in this world and go with me beyond the grave, 



198 



JESUS EXULTANT. 



and cheer and bless me with their society through eter- 
nal ages. You can readily infer that I prefer this 
brotherhood to all others. It is not a secret society, 
though it has an incommunicable secret, — the white 
stone and a new name known to the receiver only. 
Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. 

The discussion of the character of the sons of God 
pours a flood of light upon the Fatherhood of God, a 
misunderstood subject on which the false liberalism of 
modern times is built. In the New-Testament sense*, 
of that term, God is the Father of those, and only 
those, who receive his Son and believe in his r?^.me, 
who are born not of the flesh but of the Holy Spirit. 
The name Father, as applied to God, primarily denotes 
his relation to the only begotten Son tluough our 
union with him as the first term and head of a glori- 
ous series. He is the Father of all regenerated men. 
God is not our Father because he is oiu Creator and 
Preserver, for he is the Creator of the blasts, the birds, 
the fishes, and the reptiles, of which, he is nowhere 
called their Father. To say that he is the Father of 
all men is to make God and the devil father of the 
same persons. For Christ addresses some thus: "Ye 
are of your father, the devil, because you do his 
works." St. John makes the same distinction: "In this 
the children of God are manifest, and the children of 
the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of 
God ;" i.e. he is not his son. God disowns him. He has 
cut himself off from God's family, and has adopted 
Satan as his father. The essential principle of sonship 
is love, first in the Only Begotten towards his Father, 
then in belie vers who by adoption are " joint heirs of 



THE SONS OF GOD. 199 

God through Christ." Had we any adequate apprecia- 
tion of this unspeakable dignity, and the wonderful lov- 
ing kindness which this name of Father imparts, the 
joy of heaven would fill the hearts of the children of 
God while passing through all the distresses and dis- 
appointments of this earthly vale of tears. 



200 JESUS EXULTANT. 



CHAPTER XI. 

POWER FROM ON HIGH.* 

What the Spirit of inspiration teaches us to pray for 
we may without presumption assume is attainable in 
the present life. When Jesus on the cross prayed, 
" Father forgive them," pardon even for the murderers 
of the Son of God was within reach of their penitent 
faith. The prayer of the Psalmist, " cleanse me from 
my sin," after the petition for forgiveness and regenera- 
tion, " wash me thoroughly from my iniquity," author- 
izes every believer to pray in faith "create in me a 
clean heart, O God.' ; The prayer of Paul for the 
Ephesians sanctions our entreaty for a blessing beyond 
perfect purity, even that we may " be strengthened 
with might by his spirit in the inner man." This brings 
us to our theme, the endowment of power. There is in 
this prayer (Eph. hi. 14-21) nothing negative desired, 
no work of destruction prayed for, no reference to guilt, 
and no intimation that the old man is still alive and 
warring against the reign of Christ. Every petition is 
for a positive gift reaching this climax, " that ye may 
be filled unto all the fullness of God." Paul supposes 
the Ephesians are dead unto sin, and now prays for the 
fullness of the divine life which Christ calls the more 
abundant life. Many become weak because they rest 
satisfied with a negative experience without putting 

* " Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you." Acts i. 8. 



POWER FROM ON HIGH. 201 

forth holy energies, the plenitude of the divine life. 
Our criticism of the churches of our day is that they 
are manifestly lacking in those positive qualities for 
which the apostle prays for the church in Ephesus. 
Christ strongly hints the possibility that his disciples 
may become like salt that has lost its savor. How may 
such salt be known ? We answer, by its failure to pre- 
serve from corruption that perishable substance to 
which it has been applied without changing its form 
and name. What then shall we say respecting those 
churches numerous in members, venerable in age, and 
strong in social influence, around which communities 
are sinking in moral decay and spiritual death, and in 
many cases wallowing in gross vices? Are they not 
destitute of saving power? Power is known by its 
effects. The absence of the effects argues the absence 
of the cause, the power of the Holy Spirit in individuals, 
and their aggregate, the church. In discussing the en- 
dowment of power we cannot sunder it from its effects, 
and examine and define it in the abstract. All power 
has a spiritual origin. My muscular power by which 
I write these words originates not in my nervous sys- 
tem, nor in my brain, but in my spirit of which it is the 
organ. The forces in ceaseless activity about me, gravi- 
tation, heat, magnetism, and electricity, are not in the 
last analysis to be ascribed to matter, but to the Mind 
of its Creator, who, while he transcends matter, is in 
touch with eveiy particle by his immanence. We are 
now in the region of mystery. But there are no greater 
mysteries in religion than in science, if we go down to 
the bottom of things and ask questions. For all begin- 
nings are mysterious. If we reject Christianity because 



202 JESUS EXULTANT. 

of its mysteries, we have started on a road which leads 
to the subversion of all the sciences. We cannot tell 
how the might of the Spirit of God is imparted to the 
inner man of the believer in Christ. But this is the 
endowment of power for which Paul prays. It is some- 
thing beyond mere intellectual power, the capacity of 
the mind to energize intensely and continuously. This 
is desirable. To attain it we found schools and univer- 
sities. In the days of the apostles it was miraculously 
imparted under the names of the gift of wisdom, the 
gift of knowledge, the gift of tongues, and the gift of 
interpretation. 

The power which Paul invokes upon the Ephesian 
church is the restoration of Conscience to her lost 
throne ; it is the ability not only to resist temptations 
when unmasked, but also to detect the devil in the 
guise of an angel of light. For fallen men have two 
weak points, dull spiritual discernment and depraved 
desires. It is the office of the Holy Spirit to fortify 
these points, and to bring souls obedient to the truth to 
that full age or perfection which consists not only in 
having their spiritual perceptions clarified and exercised 
to discern both good and evil, but also in the ability 
always to resist the evil and to cleave to the good. 

There is constant need of the exercise of this power 
of perception and resistance. In the Garden of Eden 
our first parents fell ; Eve through dullness of spiritual 
discrimination, and Adam through lack of stalwart will 
power. "Adam was not deceived," — he sinned with 
his eyes open, — "but the woman being deceived was in 
the transgression." Much more do their degenerate 
descendants need to be strengthened with the might of 



POWER FROM OX HIGH. 203 

the omnipotent Spirit begirding " the inner man." Sin 
paralyzes the will even where it fails to put a film over 
the eye. In the downfall of our race, in the trans- 
gression of our first parents, all our spiritual nature was 
damaged ; the intellect the least, the will and moral sen- 
sibilities the most. Whence is the strength by which 
this weakness can be removed? Certainly not from 
within man, but from without; not from beneath, but 
from above, even from the source of all power, God 
himself. If fallen man is to overcome the evil propen- 
sities in his depraved nature and sit with King Jesus 
on his throne as he overcame and is set down with his 
Father in his throne, he must secure a mighty ally in 
the war which he must wage with the world, the flesh, 
and the devil. With this ally he can walk arm in arm 
in unsullied whiteness through the pollutions of the 
present world. As Jesus Christ is to-day in spotless 
holiness (1 John iv. 17), so are we who believe in him 
with a faith that lays hold of the highest possibilities of 
grace divine. It used to be argued that although man 
in his fallen estate has the natural ability to repent and 
believe, he has a total moral inability by reason of the 
perversity of his will. This deadlock between natural 
and moral ability was formerly urged as an excuse for 
impenitence, till the special call and the irresistible grace 
of the Holy Spirit should come to those who are written 
down in the register of God's secret will as uncondi- 
tionally elected to eternal life before the foundation of 
the world. When Jesse Lee, the apostle of Methodism, 
came into New England in the last decade of the eigh- 
teenth century, he met everywhere, among saints and 
sinners, preachers and people alike, this pernicious doc- 



204 JESUS EXULT AXT. 

trine, dishonoring God and destroying the souls of men. 
He banished it from the pulpits of New England by 
preaching the impartiality of the Divine regards, the 
universal extent of the atonement, and the gracious 
ability of every sinner to repent through the help of 
the Holy Spirit freely bestowed upon all without respect 
of persons. 

Whatever duty the Spirit prompts a person to do, 
whether repentance toward God, or saving trust in 
Jesus Christ, or to seek entire sanctification through 
his blood and that perfect love which casts out fear, 
the same Spirit will enable him to accomplish. Moral 
obligation always implies gracious ability. In every 
"ought" there is an implied "can." 

But the endowment of the Spirit is not limited to his 
negative efficiency in the destruction of evil in the inner 
man. He is the ally of the believer in his offensive YYar 
against sin in others, in advancing the kingdom of God 
by aggression upon the ranks of Christ's enemies. When 
this ally is neglected there is no progress ; the chariot 
wheels of King Jesus are taken off and the hosts of 
Satan prevail. 

When we inquire into the source of that might by 
which self is sanctified and Christ's kingdom is ad- 
vanced, we encounter those who teach that it is de- 
veloped within us by culture, as strength of body is 
increased by muscular exercise, and as intellectual 
strength is attained by severe study wrestling with dif- 
ficulties. We are told that there is a germ of spiritual 
might in the most morally irresolute, and feeblest souls, 
which needs only natural stimulants to develop it into 
titanic strength. But neither experience, observation, 



POWER FROM ON HIGH. 205 

nor history confirms this theory which theologians, from 
its first eminent advocate, called Pelagianism. Spirit- 
ually the natural man is dead. Aside from divine help 
he has no power to purify his nature, and to soar aloft and 
hold communion with the skies. He has no wings for 
such a flight,, nor motive power. These are the gift of 
divine grace under the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, 
the gift of the risen Christ. We are not slandering the 
natural man when we describe him as sensual, not hav- 
ing the Spirit, for we are quoting the adjectives used 
by an acknowledged expert, the inspired apostle Jucle. 
It were as reasonable to incite a corpse to walk the 
streets, and till the fields, as to inspire an unregenerate 
soul to rise from earth to heaven in its affections by any 
power less than that which comes from God. An eagle 
cannot outsoar the atmosphere. The natural man un- 
aided cannot rise above depravity. Spiritual might is 
not a development, but an endowment capable of great 
increase by faithful use. " Tarry ye in Jerusalem until 
ye be endued with power from on high. Ye shall re- 
ceive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you : ■ 
and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in 
all Judea and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part 
of the earth." This promise includes our times, for the 
uttermost pagan tribe has not yet been evangelized. 

This source of power is ignored and neglected just 
in proportion to the conformity of the church to the 
world. This is to sympathize with its spirit, to be 
chilled and deadened by its unbelief. When for the 
first time the Paraclete was promised, Jesus said re- 
specting, him, " Whom the world cannot receive ; for it 
beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him." A worldly 



zUb JESUS KXULTAXT, 

Christian, if such a paradox is allowable, lias lost ac- 
quaintance with the Comforter. Thus sundering itself 
from the source of power, it seeks various substitutes, 
such as impressive architecture, artistic music, costly 
bouquets, gorgeous ceremonials at the altar, and rhetori- 
cal fireworks in the pulpit. Every church is a machine 
requiring some motive power. One church, after de- 
e-lining into worldliness. causing the departure of the 
Holy Spirit, the only agent to attract, convert, and 
sanctify people, and frame them together into a living 
church, resorts to the power of fashion: courts the 
classes, and in adapting its services to their refined 
taste, alienates the masses, and thus loses a hundred- 
fold more than it gains. 

How strikingly are proclaimed the spiritual poverty 
and infantile weakness of many of our city churches. 
which have moved from localities crowded with poor 
people speaking the English language, because their 
high-toned aesthetic-ism, called Christian worship, their 
only power of attraction, utterly failed to attract and 
uplift and save the perishing thousands near by. who 
might have been saved if the church had possessed 
grace enough to get down from its stilts and adapt its 
ministrations to the needs of the unchurched multitudes ! 
What a cowardly act for a church of Christ, who came 
to seek and to save the lost, to desert a city ward because 
there are so many sinners in it ! It retires to a more 
respectable location, where it may gather the gay and 
rich. and. shutting its pews against the ragged poor, 
may sit down on velvet cushions and dream of going 
to heaven on flowery beds of ease. Such a reproach to 
him who ate with publicans and sinners would not have 



POWER FROM ON HIGH. 207 

been if that church had fully trusted in the power of 
the Spirit to rescue the vicious, and transform the crim- 
inal, and had adjusted the gospel message to this sole 
aim. 

Another whole denomination attaches its machinery 
to an apostolic wheel eighteen hundred years distant, 
and imagines that it conveys down through all the ages 
the whole power which Christ bequeathed to his apos- 
tles without loss or waste. According to this exclusive 
theory, which boasts a patent right to the Holy Ghost, 
the only way for the individual believer to receive the 
Pentecostal gift, and thereby to be endued with power, 
is to receive it through the hands of "the historic Epis- 
copate," which professes to hold a monopoly by virtue 
of the apostolic succession, not of God's regenerating 
grace, but of the Holy Spirit as the sanctifier and abid- 
ing Comforter. This many deluded souls are trust- 
ing in as the channel of their full heritage in Christ, 
though Lord Macaulay says, "It is probable that no 
clergyman in the church of England can trace up his 
spiritual genealogy from bishop to bishop even so far 
back as the time of the Reformation. There remain 
fifteen or sixteen hundred years during which the his- 
tory of the transmission of his orders is buried in utter 
darkness. And whether he be a priest by succession 
from the apostles, depends on the question whether, 
during that long period, some thousands of events took 
place, any one of which may, without any gross improb- 
ability, be supposed not to have taken place. We have 
not a tittle of evidence to any one of these events." 

We therefore caution all who seek the fullness of the 
Spirit and his uttermost saving-power to beware of so 



208 JESUS EXULTANT. 

doubtful a method as that of clapping the band of your 
faith around an apostle, though that band 

"be long and dark 
As a musty roll from Noah's ark." 

We live in a day when intellectual culture is in some 
denominations assuming to be the source of power. 
The so-called liberalistic organizations have without a 
blush openly dethroned the Holy Spirit and enthroned 
education. This is the panacea for all the evils of the 
human heart and all the ills of society. Some go so 
far as to say that science is the only positive power 
in the world which is to be enlightened and purified 
by rejecting all the miracles of the Bible as so many 
myths, and banishing the superstitions of Christianity, 
and inaugurating the era of universal knowledge. This 
is the only power needed by mankind to cure their 
bodity, mental, and moral maladies. Guilt is a super- 
stition which a liberal education will dispel. Sin, u a 
much-abused word," is a necessary step in the pro- 
cess of human development. The steam-engine is the 
Savior which is elevating mankind, and the magnetic 
telegraph and the long-distance telephone are his band 
of apostles preaching with electric tongues this new 
gospel of science. Against this rejection of Christ and 
displacement of his gift, the Holy Spirit, evangelical 
churches loudly protest. Yet many of these are un- 
consciously, or semi-consciously, leaning on the same 
broken reed, to be pierced through with the sorrow of 
disappointment. This disproves the claim for the puri- 
fying power of education dissevered from Christianity. 
Was Athens at the zenith of her aesthetic culture, not 



POWER FROM ON HIGH. 209 

cherishing human slavery and its twin vice, licentious- 
ness ? How fared the suffering nations when Rome had 
her iron heel on the neck of the prostrate world ? How 
gloomy the prospects of the present republic of France 
under the auspices of a cultivated infidelity ! 

While power in the abstract is a simple idea, spiritual 
power is capable of analysis. 

1. It consists first in the removal of a source of 
weakness. Incertitude is a paralysis of the soul's high- 
est faculties. Doubt weakens by distraction. Etymo- 
logically it signifies moving in two opposite directions. 
It produces fluctuation, hesitation, and suspense. " A 
double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." He 
has a divine premonition that he needs " not expect to 
receive anything from the Lord." If he is a preacher, 
his announcement of the Gospel will be weak and inef- 
fectual. He cannot speak with the assurance of a per- 
sonal experience which is requisite to produce conviction. 
How many preachers would multiply their efficiency and 
usefulness if they would kneel down by the side of Paul 
and repeat in faith his petition that they might be 
strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man ! 
It was his experience of the revelation of the Son of 
God in him by the Holy Ghost that made him successful 
as an evangelist, mighty in labors, courageous in dan- 
gers, patient in sufferings, and triumphant in martyrdom. 
No heroism was ever born of doubt. It is only when 
the soul is set on fire by some great moral truth, clearly 
seen and firmly grasped, yea, ingrained into its very 
texture, that moral sublimity in effort, in sacrifice, and 
in speech emerges. Doubt heads no glorious company 
of martyrs marching to the stake. It is customary to 



210 JESUS EXULTANT. 

advise the doubter to a study of the Christian evidences, 
to count the towers of Christianity, and mark well her 
bulwarks. Such a survey has done me much good, and 
I commend it to all who have leisure. But there is for 
the mass of busy pe >ple a shorter way. Everybody can- 
not thoroughly master the treatises of Bishop Butler, 
Archdeacon Paley, and President Hopkins, and, if they 
could, they might die before they had got so far along 
as to be convinced of the truth and receive Christ as 
both Savior and Lord . What is the shorter way ? With 
the New Testament open before him, even if he doubts 
the ability of Christ to save, let him act on the truth he 
does believe, however small, and kneel down with a 
sense of dependence on some higher power or person, 
and utter an honest prayer for help. Let him, if he 
doubts even the existence of God, begin as one bewil- 
dered skeptic did, by saying, " O God, if there be a God, 
save my soul, if I have a soul." Our merciful God did 
not disdain to answer this prayer. The Holy Spirit 
showed in quick succession the greatness of his sins and 
the surpassing greatness of his Redeemer, whom he was 
enabled by the same spirit to apprehend by faith as his 
personal Savior. Now this shorter way, which we recom- 
mend to the slave ignorant of the alphabet, we commend 
to skeptical sage sitting in his ample library. On your 
knees pray for light, and as fast as it comes follow it. 
" If any man willeth to do his will " — God's will — 
" he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, 
or whether I speak from myself," as a mere man with- 
out divine authority. Heaven and earth shall pass 
away before one jot or tittle, one crossing of a t or dot 
of an i, shall fail in this promise in the case of one who 



POWER FROM ON HIGH. 211 

seeks with a spirit of obedience to know Jesus Christ's 
character and mission. No man can be an honest skep- 
tic till he has faithfully tried this shorter way and found 
that it leads nowhere. This way honestly trodden 
brings the doubter to certainty. Says Joseph Cook, " I 
assert that it is a fixed natural law that when you yield 
yourself utterly to God, his light will stream through 
and through your soul." God honors obedience because 
it implies faith as its root. This truth we commend to 
those who regard it a special excellence to be in uncer- 
tainty respecting their relation to Christ. To be void 
of assurance they regard as an evidence of humility ; 
whereas it is an evidence of a very defective obedience 
and of an absence of total self-surrender to God. As 
well might the guest without the wedding garment 
plead that this destitution evinces superior humility. 
Assurance is always accompanied by humility. Thomas 
never felt smaller than in the moment when his risen 
Lord stood before him challenging him to test the reality 
of his body. When he was constrained to cry, " My 
Lord and my God," how cheap and mean his previous 
doubts seemed, and how deep his self-abasement. 

2. Another element of power inwrought by the Holy 
Spirit is love. We have all heard the phrase made 
classic in Christian literature by Dr. Chalmers' title to 
one of his sermons " The Expulsive Power of a New 
Affection." A man's spiritual foes are chiefly of his 
own natural heart. He needs a power to bind these 
enemies and cast them out before he can have perfect 
peace. This power is love, not merely the natural affec- 
tion for kindred and friends, but that supernatural 
affection " shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit," 



212 JESUS EXULTANT. 

causing our whole being to move God-ward and man- 
ward, because man wears the image of God. The Holy 
Spirit must not be viewed as a material agent infusing 
a subtle, imponderable fluid into man's body. He is 
God's messenger through whom he communicates the 
good news that his anger for our sins is turned away 
from us, and that he now loves us because of our faith 
in his Son. This trust in Christ has caused a revolu- 
tion in us, turning us away from our sins and bringing 
us into the sphere of his complacent love. This good 
news from God that he loves me, even me, awakens 
responsive love in me, a new affection averse to every 
impulse in me which is hostile to God. This is the 
philosophy of the expulsive power of love. Do I need 
any such message direct from God? Can I not infer 
from a study of my own mental exercises, and a com- 
parison with the description of God's friends in his 
written Word, that God loves me ? Let us see. The 
same Word of God declares that he is angry with the 
wicked every day. My conscience testifies that I am 
wicked. Before I can have perfect deliverance from a 
sense of guilt and dread of punishment I must know, 
beyond a peradventure, by an assurance excluding 
doubt, that I have been taken out of the company on 
whom God frowns, and have been put into company 
basking in his smile. Inference is not sufficient. I 
must have an assurance from the mouth of God himself. 
This alone allays fear and opens the fountain of the 
purest joy. This message instantaneously communi- 
cated is in beautiful harmony with our Protestant doc- 
trine of justification by faith, a momentary act taking 
place in the mind of the Moral Governor in heaven. 



POWER FROM ON HIGH. 213 

The witness of the spirit is the link between the pardon- 
ing God and the pardoned sinner. The news of God's 
benefaction awakens love towards the Benefactor. 
Hence this love divine arises in us in perfect harmony 
with the structure and laws of the human mind. Love 
is the essence of Christianity and its central power 
which is moving it through the world, and which will 
ultimately draw all nations to God : 

"Sink down, ye separating hills, 
Let sin and death remove ; 
'Tis love that drives my chariot wheels, 
And death must yield to love." 

The more love the more power. Perfect love brings 
the maximum of spiritual power to the individual and 
to the church. When churches decline in love they 
lose their power to attract and to convert. Then it is 
pitiable to see the ineffectual substitutes for the lost 
power. To hold the young people who belong to them 
by inheritance they resort to entertainments, but these do 
not transform and fill with divine love. They are soon 
disgusted, and fall away from attending those amuse- 
ments, which are discovered to be only baits to draw 
them unwilling into the net of the church when all their 
inclinations are to the world and its more attractive enter- 
tainments, — the pleasures of the dance, the card-table, 
and the theater. This is a most woeful mistake made 
by many modern churches. It must be rectified or those 
churches will become extinct. When does a church 
die? When it loses its converting power, just as a 
family becomes extinct when its power of reproduction 
is lost. You will find in our great libraries A History 



214 JESUS EXULTANT. 

of Burke's Extinct Baronetcies of England, Ireland, and 
Scotland. Some centuries hence there may be found in 
our libraries a History of the extinct denominations of 
the United States, the Quakers, Swedenborgians, the 
Unitarians, the Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Pres- 
byterians, Methodists, and Baptists. They all died of 
one disease, — heart-failure. 

Jesus Christ's method of conquest by love, disarming 
malice by turning the other cheek to the smiter, has 
been sneeringly criticised by a shallow philosophy as 
the vantage ground to wrong and not to right, as sub- 
versive of justice and good order, and inadequate to the 
cure of social evils. More recently a better philosophy, 
called altruism, has prevailed. Its primal principle is 
that the only way to beget right feelings, motives, and 
impulses in others is to manifest them as incarnated in 
yourself; that love toward the unworthy and malevo- 
lent will awaken responsive love. The second altruistic 
principle is that love towards enemies can originate and 
flourish on the plane of nature far below the sphere of 
the supernatural. The love that is conquering the 
world is not human but divine. Only by divine grace 
can you love the unlovely and hateful. You cannot do 
it by mere will power. Unchristian altruism is a fine 
theory but it will not work ; it is utterly impracticable. 
Christianity is practicable when it successfully confronts 
all the moral, social, political, and economic problems, 
because omnipotence is its motive power, the omnipo- 
tence of that love which is sky-born. 

The success of a preacher is not so much in the 
strength of his logic, or the splendor of his rhetoric, as 
in the atmosphere of love in which both his pulpit and 



POWER FROM OX HIGH. 215 

pastoral work are ensphered. The brainy man will be 
admired, but admiration is not ministerial success. It 
converts no sinners. The man of a warm heart will be 
loved. Gospel salvation makes sanctified human love 
its electric wire to souls distant from God, and melts 
them into penitence. It is not possible for all preachers 
to be as irresistible in argument as Chillingworth, as 
brilliant in diction as Macaulay, or as his gifted limner, 
Punshon ; but all may have the baptism of love, perfect 
love to God and man, love the fountain of pathos and 
of power to sway men, drawing them to God. If this 
secret of success is within every one's reach, how can it 
be obtained ? Some tell us that we must commune with 
nature, study the beautiful flower, listen to His voice in 
the zephyr, and, in a reverent and childlike attitude, 
read earth and sky as two pages of God's love-letter to 
man. It is true that " part of his name divinely stands, 
on all His creatures writ." But only the sentiment of 
love, not the real virtue of love to God, will be awak- 
ened by the study of nature. The contemplation of 
Nature is one thing, but communion with the Personal 
God is another and far superior thing. Sentimental love 
bearing the Christian name will prompt no sacrifices, 
awaken no quenchless zeal, inspire no unspeakable joy, 
eradicate no inward depravity, tame no evil passion, 
make no roll of heroes, thrust out no evangelists, and 
erect no trophy of victory over the world. That this is 
a truthful description you will not deny after an exami- 
nation of the characters of those who profess this kind of 
love to God. On their return not from communion with 
God on the Lord's Day, not in the house of prayer, but 
in the forest or field, what kind of fruits do they bear ? 



216 JESUS EXULTANT. 

Are they aflame with that love to God which obeys with 
gladness all his known commands, and diligently searches 
his Word for a more accurate knowledge of his will? 
Are they burning with zeal to spread his kingdom ? Do 
they so earnestly love their fellow-men in the pagan 
lands, or in the slums of our great cities, that they 
gladly sacrifice for the success of Christian missions? 
Worshipers of nature have never been known to bear 
these practical proofs of genuine Christian love. They 
have not been to its source, they do not know the Per- 
son who enkindles every truly believing heart into a 
flame of love by dropping a spark from the skies. 
"Hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is 
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given unto 
us." Others assert that we do not need the Spirit to 
reveal God's love, that the Bible is all the revelation 
that we need. It is true that the Bible is our sufficient 
revelation of God's attributes, the principles of his moral 
government, the law he has given us, and the Redeemer 
whom he has provided. But my pardon and purity are 
personal facts which it is not the province of God's 
written Word to reveal, but his Spirit only. " No man 
knoweth the Son but the Father ,' neither knoweth any 
man the Father, save the Son and he to whomsoever 
the Son will reveal him." Many talk glibly about a 
Father to whom they have never been introduced by 
the Son through the mission of the Spirit, crying in their 
hearts " Abba, Father." They belong to the "many" 
to whom the Judge will say, " I never knew you, depart 
from me." Salvation includes much more Jian a book- 
knowledge of God. It is ouite probable that the entire 
New Testament, if not the whole Bible, will be found in 



POWER FROM OX HIGH. 217 

hell in the memories of those who have read it, but have | 
failed to be regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Thousands | 
have read the Gospels, and have seen the Son of God 
pass four times before their eyes, and have failed to know 
him as their personal Savior. They can admire his sin- 
less character and still say, "This man shall not rule over 
us." They are not new creatures, because they refuse 
to be born of the Spirit. They may have a historical faith 
in Jesus Christ, but they come short of that evangelical 
trust which receives him as the Savior and enthrones"""" 
him as king. " They have the form of godliness while 
denying its power." Trusting in a form is building your 
mansion on a cloud instead of the Rock of Ages. This 
is the great peril of nominal Christians. Their number 
increases rapidly wherever persecution has ceased and 
Christianity has become fashionable. They have never 
been transformed by its power. They have never really 
submitted to God and received his adorable Son as their 
infallible teacher, effectual Savior, and rightful Lord. 
They have never cast themselves in utter self-despair 
upon the merits of his atonement, crying, " for me, for 
me my Savior died." They have never received a re- 
sponse from heaven, the witness to their adoption, uttered 
by the Holy Spirit with a voice which no one knows 
excepting him in whose heart it has consciously re- 
soundecL They have no power because they have no 
life. They may have culture, science, money, and social 
standing, but they have no grip upon God, the source of 
all power. What they need is that vital power which 
overcomes the inertia of nature and makes the sluggish 
active. Look at the apostles. Like all men they once 
preferred ease to toil, security to peril, and life to death. 



218 JESUS EXULTANT. 

After Pentecost they knew no rest, shunned no peril, 
and counted not their own lives dear unto them in their 
attestation of the truth that Jesus is the Messiah of the 
Jews and the Redeemer of the world. Peter, who less 
than two months before had uttered cowardly lies, vainly 
confirming them with oaths, shaking with terror at the 
presence and questions of a servant girl, now looks the 
assembled Jewish magnates in the eye, and boldly de- 
clares that they with wicked hands have crucified the 
Prince of Life. Timidity yields to the might of the 
Holy Spirit having full sway in the believer's soul. 
Many regenerate persons are weakened by timidity. 
They are spiritual mutes in public and private. Utter- 
ance and boldness would be theirs if by faith they would 
submit their hearts to be strengthened by the might of 
the Spirit. 

3. Temptation is one of the conditions of human 
probation. We must be put to the proof so long as we 
are in this world. Character can be solidified and beau- 
tified in no other way. Solicitations to sin under vari- 
ous disguises severely test all men. Temptation is a 
fiery furnace which either anneals or annihilates. The 
question, Which of these destinies ? is determined each 
for himself. It is the question of power to endure the 
flames. This power in turn is the question of the in- 
dwelling of God, making the soul and body his habita- 
tion through the Spirit. This ultimately hinges on 
faith. " This is the victory which overcomes the world, 
even our faith." This unites with God and infuses in- 
to us his omnipotence. Some are tempted in one way 
and some in another ; some in their animal nature, and 
yielding, are drawn downward to sensuality ; some are 



POWER FROM ON HIGH. 219 

tempted on the intellectual side, and failing to overcome, 
they become skeptics and stumble on the dark moun- 
tains of unbelief. Kings and presidents are tempted by 
their possession of power, and by a crowd of flatterers ; 
the beggar is drawn toward the low vices of falsehood, 
deception, and theft. How may all classes overcome ? 
There is but one sure way — by being girded with 
strength by the Holy Spirit received by faith in Jesus 
Christ. 

This strength is required for the eradication of evil 
habits, especially from the yoke of degrading artificial 
appetites which are more tenacious and invincible than 
inborn tendencies. The acquired appetite for tobacco, 
opium, alcohol, and other drugs, yokes under which mil- 
lions are groaning to-day, can be broken. The Lion of 
Judah, the Giver of the cleansing Spirit, can break 
every chain in a moment, and completely emancipate 
the soul from its degrading slavery. The instances of 
an instantaneous, complete, and permanent annihilation 
of these appetites, not by the gold cure, but by the Holy 
Ghost, are too numerous to be detailed here. The only 
effectual reform of drunkards is by gospel temperance, 
preached by earnest believers in the transforming power 
of the Spirit of God. I have lost faith in all other 
schemes of moral rescue. We must, in assaulting the 
Gibraltar of wickedness in our great cities, acquire the 
spirit of early Methodism in the streets and fields of 
England, preaching to mobs of raving, swearing, and 
threatening men just from the ale-house. The faith 
in which the early Methodist applied the Gospel to 
such men is well reflected by Charles Wesley's Hymn- 
Book, entitled "Hymns for Times of Trouble," and 



220 JESUS EXULTANT. 

"Hymns to be Sung in a Tumult." Listen to a few 

verses : — 

" Outcasts of men, to you I call, 

Harlots, and publicans, and thieves; 

He spreads his arms to embrace you all; 
Sinners alone his grace receives: 

No need of him the righteous have ; 

He came the lost to seek and save. 

" Come all ye Magdalens in lust, 

Ye ruffians fell in murders old; 
Repent, and live : despair and trust! 

Jesus for you to death was sold. 
Though hell protest, and earth repine, 
He died for crimes like yours and mine. 

" Come, O my guilty brethren, come, 
Groaning beneath your load of sin ; 
His bleeding heart shall make you room, 

His open side shall take you in. 
He calls you now, invites you home — 
Come, O my guilty brethren, come." 

Lest I should be misunderstood as decrying moral 
reforms, I say that efforts on the plane of nature to pre- 
vent vice are valuable, but such efforts to reform the 
vicious are failures. The Gospel of Christ contains the 
only cure. The leprosy lies deep within. The new 
birth and the Holy Spirit received are the only effec- 
tive power for the moral recovery of the grossly vicious 
whom many now pass by as hopelessly lost. 

4. It will be spiritually healthful to dwell upon a few 
of the desperate cases which illustrate the power of the 
Gospel. Paul thus describes a miracle of the Holy 
Ghost wrought in Corinth: "Neither fornicators, nor 
adulterers, nor drunkards, nor idolaters, nor thieves, nor 
covetous, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the 



POWER FROM ON HIGH. 221 

kingdom of God. And such were some of you ; but ye 
are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in 
the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our 
God." Look at this rogues' gallery, — as vile a gang as 
ever were sentenced to State-prison, — transformed by 
the grace of our Lord Jesus into a company of seraphs 
fit to be enthroned beside the archangels. See Augus- 
tine, a rake transformed by the Holy Spirit, in answer 
to his mother's prayers, into the saintly Christian bishop. 
It was the power of the Spirit which changed John New- 
ton, the captain of a slave-ship, into an eminent minister 
of the gospel of love, and the vicious tinker of Elstow, 
transfigured by the regenerating and sanctifying Spirit, 
into the glorious dreamer and author of Pilgrim'' 8 Prog- 
ress, a book which has a grip on an earthly immortality 
next to the Bible itself. Take one of the many re- 
markable conversions of our own times ; that of Jerry 
McAuley, notorious as the wickedest man in New York, 
a thief, drunkard, ex-convict, and noted river pirate. 
He was when nineteen years old sent to prison for 
fifteen years and six months. After he signed the 
temperance pledge, "he fell five times in the first few 
months and got fighting drunk." But after he let the 
Holy Spirit have the right of way through all his being 
he never fell again. He established a rescue mission in 
which hundreds, if not thousands, of sinners of his class 
'were saved before his death, and many since he went up 
r to receive a victor's crown. Modern Methodists would 
receive a healthful spiritual tonic in studying the tri- 
umphs of the Gospel as preached by Wesley and White- 
field, disarming desperate and infuriated men, turning 
cursings into blessings, drunkards into sober men, whole 



222 JESUS EXULTANT. 

communities of ignorant, besotted, and belligerent colliers 
into intelligent, peaceable Christians, thickly dotting 
their once semi-pagan region with elegant Wesleyan 
chapels, filled with joyful worshipers singing the hymns 
of the Wesleys, whose faith in the Holy Spirit's power 
to save was so strong that they risked their lives in 
preaching, to these worse than beasts at Ephesus, the 
glorious gospel of Christ. They believed that it could 
change lions into lambs. God signally honored their 
faith. O for such preachers everywhere, to-day and to- 
morrow and forever as long as sinners are found on the 
earth. ! 

Well may the triumphant believer sing, — 

" Thou dost conduct thy people 

Through torrents of temptation ; 
Nor will we fear while thou art near 
The fire of tribulation; 

" The world, with sin and Satan, * 
In vain our march opposes; 
In thee we will break through them all 
And sing the Song of Moses." 

C. Wesley. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT'S EARTHLY TEMPLE. 223 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE HOLY SPIRIT'S EARTHLY TEMPLE.* 

The Spirit dwells not in the mass of Christians orga- 
nized into the church, but in the heart of the individual 
believer. Man was created like God in his mental, 
moral, and spiritual constitution. In his body and soul 
(psyche) he is related to the animal orders. But in his 
spirit, the dome of his nature full of skylights, he is 
related to the spiritual intelligences above him and 
has the capacity for becoming the " habitation of God 
through the Spirit." As Adam was made a son of 
God within the sphere of creaturehood, he was made a 
temple of the Holy Spirit, as the only begotten Son was 
the Temple of the Spirit in the sphere of divinity. As 
God finished the first creation by breathing the life- 
giving Spirit into Adam's body, so Christ finished the 
new creation of his disciples when " he breathed on 
them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." The 
Spirit received is the completion of the new creation. 
As Adam's fall caused the withdrawal of the Spirit 
when he lent his ear to the tempter's falsehoods, so his 
restoration is complete when the risen Christ breathes 
that Spirit anew into the soul that turns its ear to God 
in a total and irreversible self-surrender. Thus the last 
Adam becomes to every believer a quickening spirit by 
imparting the Comforter, the Lord of life. We must 

*" Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" 1 Cor. 
vi. 19. 



224 JESUS EXULTANT. 

limit the pentecostal gift, except as a reprover, to be- 
lievers of every age, sex, and condition, and thus con- 
ditionally "upon all flesh" was the Spirit poured out 
as a permanent indwelling comforter. 

In all the Christian ages there have been witnesses 
to the conscious indwelling of the Holy Spirit. These 
have been few and discredited in eras of rationalism, 
and stigmatized as mystics and fanatics in periods of 
formalism ; but they have been numerous and received 
with credence in the most spiritual eras and sections of 
the Church. Their testimony is confirmed by their 
deadness to sin and self and fullness of joy. " It hap- 
pens sometimes that the indwelling of Christ and God 
and his Spirit signalizes itself with such energy in the 
believer, that the human individual life is overflowed 
and swallowed up by the divine, as a river of delight."* 
Delitzsch quotes the case of the " holy Ephrem who ex- 
perienced such wondrous consolation that he often cried, 
' Lord withdraw thy hand a little, for my heart is too 
weak to receive such excessive joy.' " John Fletcher 
at times offered a similar prayer. There are now on 
the earth witnesses to the conscious indwelling of the 
Holy Ghost in larger numbers probably than ever before. 
I know a man in Christ twenty-eight years ago — in the 
body, or out of the body, no matter which — into whose 
consciousness the Comforter came and took up his per- 
manent abode, in a day and hour never to be forgotten 
either in this world or in that to come. Invisible him- 
self he glorified Christ whom he revealed within as a 
bright reality, as he did in Paul, when God revealed 
his Son in him. 

* Biblical Psychology, p. 418. 



225 

Though earnestly sought, his incoming was a blissful 
surprise. He brought with him delicious viands for a 
feast, which he spread for his guest ; manna from heaven, 
and all the fruits of the celestial Paradise. The former 
residents he expelled. He sentenced depravity to the 
cross, and banished doubt to eternal exile. The touch 
of his hand removed all weakness, begirded with all 
strength, and disarmed all fear. The promise which 
he made when he entered, " I have come evermore to 
abide," he has thus far faithfully kept. Foreboded evil, 
borrowed trouble, and wasting worry — that dismal 
triad — slinking away from the radiant indwelling 
Christ, have disappeared as birds of night before the 
rising sun. Death, " the King of terrors," has been 
discrowned and reduced to a servant, a porter to open 
the gate when the tenant of the temple on the earth is 
invited to go up to his "house not made with hands, 
eternal, in the heavens." This man of more than two 
score blissful years is quite indifferent to the time when 
the invitation will come to leave the palace below, where 
he has supped with the King, and to enter the palace 
above, where the King will banquet him. The feast 
and the two table companions will be the same. Prob- 
ably because of the innumerable host of other banquet- 
ers, men and angels, Paul had a slight leaning toward 
the upper temple " which is very far better " (Phil. i. 
23, E. F.). 

There is a difference in the way of the Spirit's coming 
in his fullness. The day of Pentecost is not to be taken 
as an exact model ; certainly it is not in the supernatu- 
ral concomitants, such as the sound as of a cyclone, the 
tongues of fire, and " the miracle of ears," rather than 



226 JESUS EXULTANT. 

tongues, every man of sixteen nationalities hearing in 
his own language "the wonderful works of God." 

It was proper that the advent of the promised Para- 
clete should be signalized by extraordinary and impres- 
sive phenomena. This is usual at new beginnings as 
at the giving of the Law on Sinai. In a lower degree, 
something of the same kind is noted in the great out- 
pouring of the Spirit in missions, such as have gra- 
ciously favored some of the Baptist and Methodist 
missions in India in recent years, and in revivals at 
home, sweeping over the country like a tidal wave. In 
these times of refreshing, Christian men are suddenly, 
mightily, manifestly, filled with the Holy Spirit as the 
Comforter, and unbelievers are deluged with his power 
in conviction of sin. It is natural for us to fall into 
the mistake of inferring that the incoming of the Spirit 
to take up his permanent abode in the inmost life of 
the believer, must be attended by the enthusiasm and 
overflowing gladness of Pentecost. The Spirit is not 
limited to one method of manifestation. He may accent- 
uate love or peace, or some fruit other than joy, which 
is the most emotional of them all. For this reason 
there are special dangers to be guarded against. The 
blessing is often too much dependent on the concourse 
of many believers of like experience, or it is superficial 
and extends only to the emotions, the outermost and 
more accessible currents of the Soul's life. This we 
may call ecstatic fullness. The seat of character, the 
will in its deepest root, has not been completely sub- 
dued, and the inmost life has not been transformed. 
This is seen in the vacuity, the dissatisfaction which 
follows a change in externals, an abatement of the ex- 



THE HOLY SPIRIT'S EARTHLY TEMPLE. 227 

citement of a jubilant crowd, and a removal from the 
contagious gladness of other Christians. Then we find 
out whether we ourselves have been baptized with fire, 
or whether we have been warmed by other people's 
fires. Moreover, it must have been noted by careful 
observers that there are Christians of the type of Bar- 
nabas, "a son of Consolation, a good man, and full of 
the Holy Ghost." These never speak of a cyclonic ex- 
perience, a marked and memorable event sharply denned 
in memory. Yet the fullness of the Spirit manifests 
itself in deep and intense devotion to Christ ; in a life 
of constant obedience and complete victory over sin; 
in a walk in the light of God's countenance ; in a sim- 
ple trust and uninterrupted and cloudless communion 
with the Father and the Son ; and in the humility of a 
self-effacing love to all whom they can reach with their 
good deeds and prayers, whether friends or foes. We 
observe that such souls do not recur to dates, to sudden 
and memorable transitions and spiritual uplifts. Like 
Lydia, their hearts seem to have been gently opened to 
regenerating grace, and the Paraclete without observa- 
tion has noiselessly gone from apartment to apartment 
till he has taken complete possession. This we may 
call ethical fullness. " Blessed are they who hunger and 
thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled." 

Professor Austin Phelps remarks that next to the 
mystery of the Three Persons in the one divine nature 
is the habitation of the human spirit by the Holy Spirit 
interpenetrating its substance with his vitalizing pres- 
ence, pervading all the faculties of the human mind, 
becoming the life of its life, the soul within a soul, in a 
sense to which no other union makes any approxima- 



228 JESUS EXULTANT. 

tion. " He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit " 
(1 Cor. vi. 17). This mystical union is symbolized by 
the human body united with the head, the branches and 
the vine, the union of husband and wife, the dependence 
of the temple on its corner-stone. Paul has a union 
with Christ by the Holy ^ Spirit so intimate that he 
speaks of his own heart throbbing in the bosom of 
Jesus Christ : " For God is my record, how greatly I 
long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ" (Phil, 
i. 8). It has been said that such is the Spirit's efficacy 
that there is not one thought, feeling, or emotion per- 
vading the man Jesus Christ, amid the glories of the 
upper Sanctuary, but may be said to be reproduced in 
the experience of his people on the earth, so that their 
every want and sorrow vibrates to him like the touch- 
ing of a chord of which he is instantly aware. This 
telegraphic connection is implied in the joy of the 
angels over one penitent sinner, a ripple wave of glad- 
ness rolling over all the heavenly hosts. This commu- 
nion of feeling is because the Holy Spirit who dwells in 
Christ dwells also in his people. 

Are believers conscious of this indwelling of the 
Spirit? If not at all times they certainty are some- 
times in moments and hours, and even days of cloud- 
less communion with God. " But ye know him (the 
Comforter) ; for he dwelleth with you and shall be in 
you" (John xiv. 16). "Know ye not that ye are the 
temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in 
you" (1 Cor. iii. 16). "Know ye not that your body 
is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you " (vi. 
19). All these passages declare that we know, while 
other texts imply this knowledge, such as, "If any man 



THE HOLY SPIKIT'S EARTHLY TEMPLE. 229 

lias not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his " (Rom. 
viii. 9). Of course we cannot explain the mode of this 
knowledge. We cannot state how we know any fact 
outside of the sphere of the bodily senses. 

John says, " He that keepeth his commandments 
abide th in him (Christ), and* he (Christ) in him." This 
reciprocal indwelling is a double wonder. If the in- 
dwelling of Christ by his representative, the Holy Spirit, 
is a mystery, the indwelling of the believer's soul in 
Christ is to one who has no experience a mystery of 
mysteries beyond reason, and beyond such natural faith 
as is possible to the unregenerate, except on the theory 
of pantheism. This theory exaggerates God's omni- 
presence. It makes him everything as well as every- 
where ; as a soul in man, in nature, in the universe, 
just as life is in animal bodies. This soul has self-con- 
sciousness only in man.- Man's individuality is a brief 
illusion, as a bubble momentarily floating on a river, then 
losing its form in the current which bears it onward to 
the ocean. There is in pantheism no such thing as per- 
sonality in man or in God. It denies freedom in both. 
This implies that neither God nor man has a moral 
character or a moral sense. God is a blind, non-descript 
force acting through material organisms. Neither sin 
nor holiness has any place in this philosophy. There 
are two objections : first, the testimony of consciousness 
to freedom and moral accountability; and second, the 
Bible idea of God as a perfect personality, having intel- 
ligence, feeling, will, and moral freedom. We now have 
a basis for stating the doctrine of the indwelling of God 
in the believer and the indwelling of the believer in 
God. Both personalities are retained, but mentally 



230 JESUS EXULTANT. 

interpenetrated. The Spirit does not take forcible pos- 
session of the body and mind, as evil spirits do in the 
case of demoniacs, dervishes, and devotees of Hindu- 
ism, but he gently enlightens, purifies, and guides the 
trusting and renovated soul, and through it he controls 
the body. As a Person the Spirit has an intelligent and 
definite aim, which is to produce and conserve holiness 
in the believer. Such a person dwells in Christ because 
he is ensphered in his mighty personality, and encom- 
passed by his love : — 

" Plunged in the Godhead's deepest sea, 
And lost in its immensity." 

• 
The reciprocal indwelling is the strongest possible ex- 
pression for the union of God and the believer. The 
relation so intimate is indescribably blissful. It begirds 
weakness with omnipotence. It banishes fear, It arches 
the future with the rainbow of hope. 

"And when I'm to die, 
' Receive me,' I'll cry, 
For Jesus hath loved me, 
I cannot tell why : 

"But this I do find, 
We two are so joined, 
He'll not live in glory 
And leave me behind." 

What a sense of security one has who carries God in 
his bosom and at the same time is consciously dwelling 
in the Gibraltar of God's overshadowing presence, power, 
and love. Such a man is gloriously delivered from fear 
and doubt. He has the full assurance of faith, and the 
victory over the world which comes through faith. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT'S EARTHLY TEMPLE. 231 

There is another view of this mutual indwelling 
which does not tend to the strongest faith. It is best 
described by Dr. J. P. Thompson: " There is a mysti- 
cal notion that the Holy Spirit, as an essence, somehow 
dwells in the innermost heart of a renewed man as in a 
shrine, quite apart from the man himself and his mental 
and moral acts — a mysterious entity, of whose pres- 
ence the mind is vaguely conscious as a something dis- 
tinct from itself, and which acts upon the mind in the 
way of direct inspiration, impulse, vision, or spiritual 
exaltation ; that is to say, the Spirit's indwelling is a 
mysterious something that produces certain supernatu- 
ral frames and experiences within the soul apart from 
the normal action of its own faculties. But the Bible 
represents this indwelling neither as physical nor as 
fanciful; neither as a power acting upon the nerves 
and organs of the body, nor a light, a voice, a mystery 
addressing the imagination; but as the personal influ- 
ence of the Holy Spirit upon the will and the affec- 
tions, inciting and disposing them to holy love and holy 
living." 

There are many whose abiding in Christ is seeming 
and not real. Of these there are two classes. The first 
comprises all who were once living and fruitful branches 
but have become barren and dead. They still appear 
to be a part of the vine, for the knife of the pruner is 
not instantly applied. Judgment is delayed to give a 
chance for the life-giving sap to flow from the vine to 
make the branch -bud, blossom, and bear fruit again. 
These are backsliders in heart or in life. They are 
nominal Christians. They may exhibit a good degree 
of interest in the church, attend its services, contribute 



232 JESUS EXULTANT. 

to its support, and desire its prosperity as an institution 
that conserves the well-being of society. But they are 
vitally sundered from Christ. Their faith has relaxed 
its grip and their love to him has died. In the absence 
of love, no intellectual advocacy of Christian truth, no 
moral excellence, no activity in reforms, no giving of 
goods to feed the poor, can be fruit in the eye of God. 
The second class includes professors of Christianity, 
who never truly repented of their sins and never exer- 
cised a saving trust in Christ. These do not abide in 
him because they were never grafted into the true vine. 
The thought is a very sad one that there are many who 
are in this mistaken attitude towards the only Savior of 
sinners. They imagine that they are in the ark of salva- 
tion when they have never embarked. They are very 
confident that they are securely abiding in Christ who 
are yet not in Christ at all. They delude themselves 
with a semblance of fruit. They have a kind of interest 
in the church ; they are so busy in its externalities, adorn- 
ing its temples, embroidering altar-cloths, supplying its 
pulpit with flowers, making its music artistic, organizing 
its young people, and carrying on its fairs, festivals, and 
entertainments, that they delude themselves with the 
idea that they are bearing much fruit unto Christ. They 
have not learned that fruit to Christ is the fruit of the 
Spirit, the possession of Christlike qualities. How did 
these persons come into this deplorable delusion ? They 
mistook for repentance some act which falls short of 
God's command, such as rising for prayers, kneeling at 
an altar, signing a card, or attending an inquiry meet- 
ing. They were urged to the performance of some one 
of these acts which is not decisive of religious character. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT S EARTHLY TEMPLE. 23'6 

This was much easier than that genuine repentance 
which goes through the heart like a subsoil plow. They 
substituted an outward act for an inward, gracious and 
thorough work. Unwise and unwary advisers allowed 
this fatal substitution, and thus encouraged unregener- 
ate persons to be baptized and to join the visible Church. 
They are now spurious branches of the true vine, branches 
attached with glue or sealing wax, and bearing adventi- 
tious fruit like oranges artificially attached to a Christ- 
mas tree. This untrue religious profession is an almost 
impervious shield against all alarming gospel truth. 
Hence it is not probable that many who are in this un- 
fortunate relation to Christ will awake from the delusion, 
which they have welcomed, till they shall hear the 
Judge say, " Depart from me, I never knew you." 
The cause of this hopeless delusion is a false Christ in 
which so many are trusting in preference to the true 
Savior from sin. 



234 JESUS EXULTANT. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

BUYING AND SELLING TRUTH.* 

" What is truth? " The only person able to answer 
this question declined the task, and that, too, when he 
had only a moment before asserted, " To this end was 
I born and for this cause came I into the world, that I 
should bear witness unto the truth/' The reason why 
Jesus refused to answer Pilate was that he was inca- 
pable of receiving Christ's definition. As well might a 
mathematician define the Binomial Theorem or Differ- 
ential Calculus to a wild Indian of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. The communication of ethical and spiritual 
truth requires not only a competent teacher but also a 
receptive pupil. Jesus observed his own precept, " cast 
not your pearls before swine." Truth has been vari- 
ously defined. Says one, " It is the relation of things 
as God sees them." Another says, " It is the knowl- 
edge of things as they are." Men are said to have 
spiritual truth when the verities of Divine Revelation 
are by faith apprehended as solid realities in accordance 
with which they are bound to act by the high sanctions 
of eternal weal or woe. There are several significant 
implications in our text. First, that we are adapted to 
the truth, and capable of receiving the truth, and to 
know it with certainty. Secondly, that it is of su- 
preme importance. It is the hinge of destiny. In the 

* " Buy the truth, and sell it not." Prov. xxiii. 23. 



BUYING AND SELLING TRUTH. 235 

third place, much emphasis is put upon truth in the 
Bible which contains no hint of any substitute. There 
is not in the Holy Scriptures any vestige of the modern 
popular notion that sincerity can take the place of truth 
in the scheme of salvation. In the fourth place, that a 
real knowledge of saving truth does not come to us 
without strenuous effort and painful sacrifice. This is 
not true of material things which obtrude themselves 
upon our five senses, such as colors, music, odors, and 
magnitudes. There are other truths of intuition which 
lie open to our inward perception, such as the axi- 
oms of mathematics and of ethics. These come to us 
spontaneously without effort when we first awaken to 
thought. They are self-evident. But this kind of truth 
is not that which God commands men to buy, and for- 
bids them to sell. Though man is by nature religious, 
he does not come into the world with a full equipment 
of Christian truth. Natural religion, or the religion of 
Conscience, may not require much effort, nor does it go 
very far towards the attainment of the great purpose of 
life to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever, though it 
is a ground of accountability to God in the great and 
last day. Religious truth must be bought in order to 
become the real possession of the soul. What is the 
price ? Not silver and gold, though Jesus, finding a rich 
young man who was making these his god, demanded 
their surrender as the price of saving truth. He could 
not receive essential Christian truth while idolizing his 
riches which destroyed his capacity for this heavenly 
treasure. God, in his Word, has set the price of saving 
truth. 

1. Diligent search. Scientific truth comes only through 



236 JESUti EXULTANT. 

patient research. Truth has been compared to a beau- 
tiful marble statue, broken into fragments and scattered 
through the universe. He who would attain all scien- 
tific truth must collect these scattered members, digging 
deep in the earth, and with the telescope scan all the 
heavens, and thus painfully reconstruct the entire image. 
He must travel half round the globe to catch a lost par- 
ticle of truth blazing en the edge of the sun in an 
eclipse, and he must make perilous adventures into the 
polar regions and risk his life among the icebergs in the 
interest of scientific knowledge. This is the steep and 
rough path up which the successive generations must 
climb for the attainment of the glorious vision of Na- 
ture's truth. So it is with religious truth with this 
difference. God's truth is a revealed whole and not a 
broken statue. We are not required to hunt through 
all lands to gather widely-separated parts of truth. It 
is all in the Book of books. Why then need we toil 
all our lives ? It is not to find the truth but to find a 
place for it in ourselves. We must stretch our powers 
to the highest tension to make room for the truth. 
What says Divine Wisdom ? " My son, if thou wilt 
receive my words, and hide my commandments with 
thee, so that thou apply thine heart to understanding ; 
yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy 
voice for understanding ; if thou seekest her as silver 
and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt 
thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowl- 
edge of God." What a steep stairway of eager verbs 
is here — incline the ear, apply the heart, cry after, lift 
up the voice, seek, and search, then shalt thou find. Up 
this difficult steep must you ascend if you would enter 



BUYING AND SELLING TRUTH. 237 

into the presence of Divine Wisdom and be thrilled 
with the vision of her beauty and be enriched with 
her merchandise. Do not be ashamed to cry so loudly 
that the whole world may be convinced of your earnest- 
ness and of your steadfast purpose to find and to possess 
that treasure which gold cannot buy. In heroic devo- 
tion and sacrifice you must not only rival but excel the 
tireless votary of science, because the object of your 
pursuit is infinitely more excellent, outshining in splen- 
dor and outweighing in value the whole material uni- 
verse. " The things which are seen are temporal ; but 
the things which are not seen are eternal." The supe- 
riority of divine wisdom to human should awaken su- 
perior zeal in its acquisition. Much praise is due to 
Professor Morse for inventing the electric telegraph, 
and to the persistence of Cyrus Field in laying it be- 
neath the Atlantic so that thought may be flashed in a 
moment from the old world to the new, but more praise 
should be bestowed on him who has learned the glorious 
art of holding converse with the skies while dwelling 
on earth. 

2. A concentration of all your energies. All your 
springs of action are to be quickened and directed to 
this one end. All other ends must be subordinated to 
this chief end. All else must be held cheap in compari- 
son with the apprehension of truth and the perfect con- 
formity of our characters to its requirements. We 
cannot have two supreme aims lying so far apart as 
earth and heaven. Our bodily eyes are so constructed 
that our vision cannot be clearly fixed on one object 
which is near and on another distant one at the same 
time. Standing within a lettered window you cannot 



238 JESUS EXULTANT. 

fix your attention on the letters so as to read them and 
at the same time have a distinct view of objects far be- 
yond which are in the same line of vision. The lenses 
of the eye cannot be simultaneously adjusted to the 
near and the distant object. Our souls have the same 
limitations ; we cannot be consecrated to Mammon and 
to God so that both will be supreme objects of desire. 
We must choose between them. Wise men had made 
the discovery that it is very difficult, if not impossible, 
to gain the riches of this world and treasures in heaven, 
too, before Jesus said, " Ye cannot serve God and 
Mammon." 

Entire consecration to God in order to grasp the 
highest spiritual knowledge is not an arbitrary require- 
ment. It is in perfect accord with our mental, moral, 
and spiritual constitution. " The kingdom of heaven 
is like unto a treasure hid in a field, the which when a 
man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth 
and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field." 
This great price no man can pay unless he has that 
faith which realizes the transcendent value of spiritual 
verities. " This is the victory that overcomes the world, 
even your faith." Faith gives substance and solidity 
to eternal realities, and brings them near, and makes 
them more influential in shaping the character than the 
things which address our bodily senses, than the chan- 
ging fashions and fleeting opinions of men. 

3. The price which must be paid for truth is absti- 
nence from all such sensual pleasures as are repugnant 
to its possession. Pleasure is a siren whose music en- 
chants and allures to destruction. It bewilders, befools, 
and misleads. Religious truth does not dwell in the 



BUYING AND SELLING TRUTH. 239 

same sphere with pleasure. The one alwaj^s dwells on 
high ; the other is in the nether sphere, earthly and sen- 
sual, having not the Spirit. Pleasure draws a film over 
the eye of the soul, hiding spiritual realities ; truth 
clarifies the vision and transports us into an atmosphere 
of Italian clearness, alike free from mists which blur 
and the mirage which falsifies objects. Lord Bacon in 
enumerating the Idola, or sources of false appearances, 
specifies among them the influence exercised over the 
understanding by the will, the passions, and appetites. 
No man can grasp and retain spiritual truth while 
under their mastery. They must be reduced to per- 
fect obedience to reason, conscience, and the word of 
God. 

4. Prejudice must be cast away as a part of the cost 
of truth. The mind must take off its green spectacles 
and lay them aside forever. Most of us are victims of 
prejudices which rob us of precious truth. Few people 
are candid enough to confess that they hate the truth. 
They prefer to dress it up in their own misconceptions 
and erroneous opinions, and then to show their hostility 
to this scarecrow of their own imaginations. They shut 
the blinds and thickly curtain the windows, preferring 
to mistake shadows for substance, falsehood for truth. 
By a strange perversity they prefer to hug a lie to their 
bosoms, though it deforms and blights their souls, rather 
than the truth, which would transform them into angelic 
beauty and loveliness. 

5. Pride must abdicate her throne as the price of 
truth. Pride prompts to the concealment of ignorance, 
the road to grossest errors. Ignorance confessed and 
asking for light is climbing the mountain where Truth 



"240 JESUS EXULTANT. 

has her abode. God regardeth the proud afar off. 
Neither he nor his attendant, Truth, can get near to 
Pride ; but they both make their abode, their perma- 
nent residence, with the humble spirit. Here science 
and Christianity come into beautiful concord. The phi- 
losopher who would extract from Nature the secret 
locked up in her arcana must take a humble position 
at her feet and, like a little child, ask questions. Hence 
the wise saying of Bacon, " The kingdom of science 
like the kingdom of heaven must be entered with hu- 
mility." The Greek philosophers, who were too proud 
to come to nature like little children, never advanced 
the natural sciences a single inch. They constructed 
their theories without a careful observation of facts, 
and haughtily commanded nature to verify them. She 
stubbornly refused to obey, and the world went on its 
dark way till Bacon bade proud Philosophy get down on 
her knees and, confessing ignorance, ask simple ques- 
tions. Then Nature unsealed her lips and poured out 
the secrets hid from the proud and self-sufficient. Then 
were born astronomy, chemistry, geology, biology, and 
scores of other ologies, making up the triumphal proces- 
sion of the modern natural sciences. If any one would 
enter the low gate of the temple of divine knowledge 
let him creep in on his hands and knees. Let him 
study Jesus Christ, the Light of the world, enthrone 
him as the infallible teacher to instruct the ignorant 
and them that are out of the way. So-called Christian 
lands contain numerous persons with cultivated intel- 
lects who are spiritual agnostics — the Greek for igno- 
ramuses — simply because they will not recognize Jesus 
Christ as the unerring source of truth, yea, the truth 



BUYING AND SELLING TRUTH. 241 

himself, and receive him as their wisdom. If they rec- 
ognize the existence of the personal God, they have no 
confidence in his promise, "If any man lack wisdom 
let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and 
upbraideth not, and it shall be given to him." But, 
queries an objector, am I to give up my reason that I 
may believe in Revelation ? ' As well might you put out 
your eyes in order to see the rings of Saturn through^ 
the telescope. Faith in Christ, on the ground of his 
unique and sinless character and supernatural works, j 
crowned with his own resurrection from the dead, is the 
highest reason. Pride of opinion keeps many from a dil- 
igent study of the Christian evidences lest they should 
be constrained to believe and to deny self, take up the 
cross daily, and follow the despised Man of Nazareth. 
Many of the contemporaries of Galileo refused to look 
through his telescope lest they should be obliged to con- 
fess their error that the earth moves around the sun. 
Some people are so proud that they will not look at 
religious truth through God's telescope, the Bible, be- 
cause they are too proud to give up the error of their 
ways, and the mistaken devices of their thoughts and 
of their theories made to justify their sinful conduct. 
Thus you must pay for God's saving truth, diligent 
search, a concentration of all your energies, amounting 
to the entire consecration of self to the truth, abstaining 
from all forbidden sensual indulgences which incapaci- 
tate for the vision of spiritual realities, throwing away 
prejudice and abandoning pride. All this they must 
freely give to possess that truth which is incarnated in 
Christ and made the conditional heritage of all men. 
We now go a step further and say that, — 



242 JESUS EXULTANT. 

6. We must give ourselves for this heavenly treasure 
— our hearts and our wills. Pascal says that the things 
of this world we must know in order to love, but God 
the Father and Jesus Christ his only begotten Son we 
must love in order to know. But how can a man love 
"such an abstraction as truth? Properly speaking, we 
can love only a person, neither a quality nor an abstract 
entity. Behold the wondrous condescension of God! 
He puts truth into concrete form, he identifies it with 
his Son, who has become a man with faculties respon- 
sive to ours, and has come, by his self-sacrifice for us, 
into the sphere of our affections ; for it is natural for 
love to respond to love, for gratitude to go out toward 
a benefactor. God can save us only by awakening our 
love. His love alone is insufficient. There would be 
no bad children in the world if a mother's love could 
turn them away from a career of sin. Her love can 
succeed only when it awakens obedient and repentant 
love in the perverse child. God's love must fail to 
reconstruct and restore the sinner, if its display in the 
amazing gift of his Son does not enkindle gratitude in 
his heart as soon as this wonderful love for him is made 
known. 

You cannot receive Christ, the truth, without a dispo- 
sition to conform your character to the demands of that 
truth. This requires unquestioning, unhesitating obe- 
dience. " Every one who is of the truth heareth my 
voice." The buyer of truth puts his will into the 
attitude of harmony with the will of this infallible 
Teacher. He accepts "all the counsel of God," how- 
ever painful. 

He follows the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. To 



BUYING AND SELLING TRUTH. 243 

have pleasures which he does not sanction, and sources 
of joy which do not spring from him, is to raise up in 
himself a barrier against the truth. This is the great 
difficulty which prevents saving faith from having its 
proper effect in worldly minds. Christ builds a fence 
across the path of sinful gratification, and kindles a fire 
in the house of their idols. He bridles appetites and 
exterminates the whole brood of malevolent passions. 
He commands us to cut off right hands and to pluck 
out right eyes. The votaries of truth will ever be eager 
to know the truth. Hence they will, by day and by 
night, study the words of Jesus, the source and standard 
of truth, and the words of his apostles, through whom 
he more fully unfolds the germs of truth which he so 
freely scattered on the earth in his brief ministry. The 
lovers of truth will search the whole Bible, which is 
made up of the historic and the prophetic record of 
Jesus Christ. We say search, because, while all saving 
truth lies on the surface, there are profundities unfath- 
omable. It has been well said that the Bible is " a 
stream where alike the lamb may wade and the elephant 
may swim." The truths which instrumentally regen- 
erate and sanctify, which inspire life and beautify the 
character, can be apprehended by uncultivated in- 
tellects. Well did Isaiah prophesy, "The wayfaring 
men, though fools, shall not err therein." Yet there 
are nuggets of pure gold awaiting the patient faith 
and toil of the miner who will sink a shaft down to 
their hiding-place. We often revert to the motto of 
good old Bengel, who prescribes a code of rules for 
himself worthy of adoption by every student of the 
Holy Scriptures: — 



244 JESUS EXULTAXT. 

" Te totum applica ad Textum ; 
Bern totam applica ad Te." 
("Apply thyself wholly to the Text; 
Apply the subject wholly to thyself.") 

Thus may you all buy the truth. Take Jesus as the 
truth, and then study his words with a constant appli- 
cation to thy own heart and life. Moreover, there is a 
special, appointed helper in this work. If you would, 
experimentally and assuredly, beyond a doubt know the 
cardinal and vital truths of the Gospel, put yourself 
under the leadership of the appointed Guide, who sus- 
tains an intimate relation to the truth and to the inquir- 
ing soul. He is called "the Spirit of truth." It is his 
office to lead the believer into that realization of spirit- 
ual truth called, after the day of Pentecost, epignosis — 
full knowledge. Christ will never be a real divine Per- 
sonality whom you will instinctively call Lord until this 
Guide unveils him to your astonished vision. To secure 
this Guide, his person and offices must be recognized by 
something more than an intellectual assent to the tenet 
of the creed, " I believe in the Holy Ghost." He must 
be definitely sought, received, enthroned, and followed. 
" For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are 
the sons of God." All such the Spirit guides — not by 
the revelation of new truth not found in the Bible, but 
by giving a sense of reality to truths already revealed 
and lodged in the intellect. Many wear the Christian 
name, and fear God as servants, and in a legal spirit 
keep his commands, who in their inmost hearts have 
never heard the Spirit's cry, "Abba, Father," and real- 
ized the joy of his indwelling. As a consequence, their 
perceptions of spiritual truth are indistinct and hazy — 



BUYING AND SELLING TRUTH. 245 

not clear and sharply defined. They are like the men 
spoken of by Jeremiah (xxiii. 30), " Behold, I am against 
the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words every 
one from his neighbor." If they find the truth they 
do not come honestly by it, but get it at second hand 
from some one who has been to the source of spiritual 
truth by coming into experimental contact with God. 
They are not in personal communication with him. 
They lose the freshness and power of words coming 
directly from his mouth. Though the formal creed 
which they confess is genuine, for it is God's word, 
their religion is counterfeit. It is essentially human, 
because it has been received from man — from acqui- 
escence in hearsayings from parents, preachers, and teach- 
ers — and not from personal experience. If from fathers, 
it is a hereditary religion ; if from the Church, it is a 
traditional religion ; if received because of its venerable 
age, it is a kind of antiquarian religion ; if on the 
authority of great names, it is a man-taught religion. 
In testimony there is no positiveness, little originality, 
much sameness, and great weakness. In their inquiry 
after religious truth they reverse the following ortho- 
dox rules: First the closet, then the study; first the 
Bible, then the commentary; first the Scriptures, then 
theology. God wants individuality in Christian experi- 
ence, because he is pleased with variety in the spiritual 
life as he is in the natural world. Those who have a 
marked personal experience of God's saving power are 
not wise in thinking that their experience is, in its 
minute incidents, a model for all others. This is mis- 
leading to seekers. God is pleased with as great a 
variety in his new creation as he was in his first crea- 



246 JESUS EXULTANT. 

tion. When Jesus calls his own sheep by name he sees 
in each one some spiritual trait which makes him dif- 
ferent from all other believers. "I will instruct thee 
and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go : I will 
guide thee with mine eye." Let the Holy Spirit indi- 
vidualize men in their regeneration and entire sanctin- 
cation. Then there will be no feeble imitations. Then 
we shall not be weakened by an uncertain religion. For 
a borrowed experience, and what Jeremiah styles a 
stolen testimony, are haunted by doubt and timidity. 
Boldness belongs only to him who has wrestled with the 
angel of mercy and has prevailed. Converted pagans, 
and all who are brought into the kingdom at the begin- 
ning of great religious movements, where there was no 
one to copy from, have always been marked with great 
strength because of their striking individuality of ex- 
perience. 

We are forbidden to sell the truth. There are vari- 
ous ways of making this sale. In general, let me say 
that you sell any truth when you pursue a course of 
conduct which destroys its influence over your life. 
Moral and religious truths are not final — that is, they 
are not to be obtained for themselves alone. They are 
a means to an end. That end is righteousness and 
benevolence, the two constituents of holiness. Truth 
is a ladder to sanctified character. Now, the important 
principle which I wish to impress on all minds is that 
Christian truth can be retained only as it- attains this 
end. It cannot be firmly held as a mere speculative 
theory. A scientific truth which has no such practical 
aim may be firmly held in the mind for a half century, 
as I have retained certain facts in astronomy. But no 



BUYING AND SELLING TRUTH. 247 

such religious truths can be held in the heart while the 
will refuses to apply them to the man in the production 
of newness and purity of life. Take monotheism — the 
existence of a personal God, holy, just, benevolent, wise, 
and true. This basal truth cannot be held as a mere 
theory sundered from service and worship. If it does 
not sway the life and transfigure the character, conquer 
sin, and inspire love and purity, the mind must lose its 
grip upon it as a verity and become practically atheistic. 
Thus every Christian truth, repentance, the new birth, 
the day of Judgment, heaven, and hell, all become airy 
abstractions and visionary unrealities. Out of this chaQS 
systems of theoretical atheism sooner or later arise. 
Disobedience to the truth is the seed of all forms of 
infidelity. 

Truth can be bought and it can be sold. We buy it 
when we hold all else cheap in comparison with it, and 
are willing to part with everything inconsistent with its 
possession. We sell it when we more highly prize the 
pleasures which it forbids. 

Again, simple neglect of truth is selling it. The 
seller is not usually aware of the bad bargain he has 
made. He thinks he can at will call up that vivid 
realization of truth which once came to him on some 
mount of vision in his youthful days, when for the sake 
of some selfish end he refused to walk in that clean path 
to which the finger of truth then pointed ; but he can- 
not command the return of that vision. It is to him no 
longer a truth. He has sold it, and a fool's bargain has 
he made. This irretrievable bargain has been made by 
multitudes who to their sorrow have found it impossible 
to take back the treasure so thoughtlessly sold. 






248 JESUS EXULTANT. 

Once they heard the trumpet of Sinai waxing louder 
and louder in its call to obey the law of Christ. They 
disliked the sound of this summons to their conscience 
and their higher nature. They turned away and gave 
their ears to the soft tones of pleasure, so agreeable to 
their lower propensities. Now their ears have become 
deaf to the sound of that trumpet, and they begin to. 
doubt its reality. It seems to them like an unpleasant 
dream. 

Once they saw Heaven's gate wide open and the 
angel of mercy beckoning them up the narrow way, but 
f the way looked steep and lonesome, and they chose the 
broad, descending road, a boulevard filled with gay 
promenaders, with whom they have sauntered along, till 
the vision of the good angel has faded away forever. 
Eternal life is now a myth, and the momentous words 
of Jesus about the narrow way to life and the broad 
road to destruction are treated as the day-dream of a 
visionary fanatic. 

I appeal to those of my unregenerate readers who 
are not Christians, who have passed beyond youth into 
mature manhood and womanhood. Was there not a 
time when every declaration in the Bible relating to 
duty and destiny, repentance, trust in Christ, holiness of 
heart and life, the day of Judgment, and the sentences 
there pronounced, were to you realities, awakening in 
you a very sober interest ? Did you not then see the 
law of God as a sword suspended by a single hair above 
your guilty soul? Did you not also see the Savior of 
sinners as a rock cleft to take you in and hide you from 
the tempest which shall sweep away the ungodly? Do 
you not remember the times when contemplating these 



BUYING AND SELLING TRUTH. 249 

realities you were on the point of turning from the way 
of sin to the path of life ? Do you not remember that 
just then you listened to the voice of sinful pleasure, 
and yielding to the fascinations of this world, you said 
to the Redeemer of your soul, "Go thy way for this 
time, when I have a convenient season I will call for 
thee " ? Do you now regard the truths which had so 
much influence over you then as no longer realities, but 
rather as mere myths unworthy the serious contempla- 
tion of a rational being ? 

Let me tell you just what you have done. You have 
sold out God's saving truth, the only instrument of your 
salvation. You thought you could buy it back when- 
ever in the future you should be so disposed. Disposed ? 
Ah ! there is where the difficulty lies, in your changed 
disposition toward the truth. It is no longer to you 
truth but fiction. It is not in accordance with the laws 
of mental philosophy that you shall ever have the same 
vivid impression of the truth which you once had. You 
cannot by your volitions awaken feeling. The feelings 
are not the objects of the will. You cannot will any 
emotion to arise in you. The most that you can do is 
to gaze upon those objects and listen to those sounds 
out of which the sense of the beautiful or of the sub- 
lime arise. For the latter you look at the starry heav- 
ens, the rainbow, the sea-beach after a storm, or Niagara's 
awe-inspiring cataract. When you wish religious feel- 
ing you must contemplate religious truth. But if it 
has lost its reality to you, your contemplation will fail 
to awaken the proper emotion which is the effect of 
truth. This is the philosophy of the process of becom- 
ing spiritually hard and callous under the preaching of 



250 JESUS EXULTANT. 

Christian truth. Those who believe and obey become 
more and more susceptible to the emotion which it 
effects. But those who disobey its requirements be- 
come more and more indurated, because the truth has 
in their estimation become falsehood. But God may in 
his long-suffering compassion give you another vision 
of truth, but less impressive than before, and, therefore, 
less influential and less likely to convert the soul from 
the error of its ways. 

Says Pundita Ramabai : "The purpose of the Lord in 
sending me to the United States was to teach me some 
very precious lessons. While in that country I met cer- 
tain Western admirers of Swami-ism, which passes for 
Hinduism in Western countries. It seems that they 
did not find any satisfaction in the Bible and were seek- 
ing after something better. I had neither time nor 
inclination to reason with these people. But one thing 
was clear to me — that even with the open Bible in our 
hand, if one does not live a supernatural life and prove 
the religion of Jesus Christ to be the religion of heav- 
enly life by experimenting upon it, the Scripture may 
become a dead letter. What is needed in all countries 
where the Gospel is preached is, that its preachers and 
followers should live a supernatural life. I have to 
learn much before I know what obeying God and hav- 
ing the fullness of the Spirit means. I was in the habit 
of interpreting the Bible as it suited me best, while try- 
ing honestly to keep the commandments of God. This, 
of course, did not help me to lead a supernatural life. 
The Lord showed me clearly that the world will love 
and honor what is its own — that so long as I have any 
part in a compromise with the world I shall not be used 
of God as a witness for his truth." 



BUYING AND SELLING TRUTH. 251 



suasive power. The fine gold becomes dim by neglect. 
The longer the neglect the greater is its depreciation in 
value. An old man once said to his little grandson 
sitting on his knee, " My child, seek God now." The 
boy, knowing that his grandfather was not a praying 
man, replied, " Grandpa, why do you not seek God 
now? " — "I would, my child, but my heart is hard," 
answered the old man, who had found out to his sorrow 
how difficult it is to buy back the truth that he had 
sold. He could not recover that affecting view of 
divine realities which, as the birthright of his youth, he 
had bartered for a "mess of pottage," to allay for a 
moment his hunger for sensual pleasures. 

My readers, you are to-day, every one of you, buying 
that truth which will admit you when you come to the 
gate of Heaven, and pass current through the eternal 
ages ; or you are selling it and making yourself an ever- 
lasting pauper with the remorseful reflection, " It is my 
own fault and folly that I am not a spiritual millionaire.'^" 

Which are you to-day, buyers or sellers ? This ques- 
tion is almost as appropriate for the contemplation of 
professed Christians as it is for unbelievers. For Chris- 
tians are as strongly tempted to sell those unpalatable 
and generally unaccepted truths which underlie the 
highest spirituality as sinners are to sell truths leading 
to repentance and the new birth. Advanced experience 
rests on the most precious truth. Entire sanctification 
in this life is attained only by the firm grip of faith 
upon this priceless truth, " The blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanseth us from all sin." Do not let this glorious 
truth be obscured and hidden from your vision by the 



252 JESUS EXULTANT. 

fashionable misrepresentation of the next verse (1 John 
i. 8, "If we say we have no sin we deceive our 
selves "), wherein is rebuked the Gnostic philosophers 
who ascribed all sin to matter and asserted that the soul 
is sinless and above the need of an atonement. The 
erroneous explanation of this verse has kept many in 
bondage to sin all their days. 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 253 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES.* 

These are the words of a man in jail for preaching 
Christ. He had been a prisoner several years. His 
outlook for the future was toward the bloody block on 
which the headsman's ax would sever his head from 
his body at the command of Nero. He expresses no 
regret for the career of missionary travel which has ex- 
posed him to this fate. Rather he congratulates him- 
self on the privilege of heralding Christ Jesus to the 
nations. When he calls himself " less than the least of 
all saints," by the use of a double comparative, he ex- 
presses genuine humility, because he had with a perse- 
cuting hand beaten Christians in every synagogue and 
caused them to blaspheme. He deemed the lowest 
place on God's footstool too good for a man who had 
seconded the deliberate murder of Stephen, the first 
martyr. Some people say that they must sin a little 
every day to keep them humble ; as if sin can cure sin. 
St. Paul did not need such a remedy, but he kept him- 
self in a lowly place at the feet of all his brethren by 
the constant memory of his past sins. This was the 
consideration which kept King David humble — the 
recollection of the sins of his youth, praying that they 
might not be remembered against him. This is suffi- 

* " Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that 
I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ," 
Eph. Hi. 8. 



254 JESUS EXULTANT. 

cient to produce constant humility in us all. We note 
the improved tone of Paul's feelings in relation to 
preaching the Gospel. A few years before this he 
wrote to the church in Corinth words seeming to imply 
that it was a task from which he shrank but did not 
dare to refuse : — 

" For though I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to 
glory of ; for necessity is laid upon me ; yea, woe is 
unto me, if I preach not the Gospel." — Cor. ix. 16. 

This sounds like one under a painful constraint. He 
did not then say that it was more than his meat and 
drink to point bigoted, bitter Jews to Christ crucified, 
and persecuting Pagans to the Lamb of God which tak- 
eth away the sin of the world. He speaks with an "if " 
— " for if I do this willingly I have a reward, but if 
against my will, a dispensation of the Gospel is com- 
mitted unto me," and I will be a faithful trustee even 
if I cannot be a jubilant herald. But three or four 
years afterward he uses words which contain no such 
implication, u Unto me is this grace given," this great 
favor, this peculiar privilege, " to preach the unsearch- 
able riches of Christ." To me this language indicates 
a growth in grace, a more gracious revelation in him 
of the transcendent preciousness of Christ. In other 
words, he had been more copiously anointed with the 
oil of gladness, the Holy Spirit, infusing a passionate 
love for the Nazarene once despised and hated. His 
soul had become a furnace flaming with the ardors of 
love. There is a great difference between the woe and 
the anointing as motives to actuate the preacher. Yet 
God honors both, while he bestows his delighted ap- 
proval on the anointed herald. There is a tinge of 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 255 

legalism about many Christians. They are servants 
rather than sons. They sigh more than they sing. 
When such become preachers of the Word, they may 
become very instructive and persuasive, but they will 
not touch the zenith of power till the woe has been 
exchanged for the anointing. It is the office of the 
Comforter to take of the things of Christ and to show 
them unto us. This vision of Christ is necessary to 
genuine and effective eloquence. Some of us can testify 
to this fact. Nor is this remark limited to preachers. 
It is true of all Christian workers and of all believers. 
No man or woman attains the maximum influence for 
Christ till anointed by the Holy Spirit. The study of 
the Holy Scriptures is absolutely necessary to intelli- 
gent piety and effective labor for others, but it can 
never be a substitute for the indwelling of the Holy 
Spirit. There is all the difference between the woe and 
the anointing that there is between a pump and an arte- 
sian well, between a tug and a gush. Oh, the gladness, 
the spontaneity of the work — work, did I say? of the 
privilege of sounding the name of Jesus in the ear of 
sinners where we feel the throb of an abundant spiritual 
life leaping through every vein, when we are conscious 
that soul and body is the habitation of God through the 
Spirit. 

" O, that I could all invite 

This saving truth to prove, 
Show the length, the breadth, the height 

And depth of Jesus' love." 

There are too many tinkling cymbals and too much 
sounding brass in Christian pulpits ; too much empty 
rhetoric and barren philosophy, containing as little spir- 



256 JESUS EXULTANT. 

itual nutriment as the east wind. Only love can awaken 
love. Only love can feed love. There is nothing like 
an experience of saving and sanctifying love as the pre- 
eminent element of pulpit power. I have now un- 
covered the secret of success in the Wesleys and the 
Methodist fathers in England and America. They 
drank abundantly from the wells of conscious salvation, 
and then cried out to a generation faint and dying of 
thirst : — 

" Ho! every one that thirsts, draw nigh; 

'Tis God invites the fallen race; 
Mercy and free salvation buy; 

Buy wine, and milk, and gospel grace." 

- We now call attention to a more cogent proof of 
Paul's intense love to Christ and his fellowmen, and 
of his inexpressible delight in heralding the message of 
free and full salvation. He was a true patriot. He 
loved the Hebrew nation. He could not suppress the 
national feeling which frequently flamed out in great 
intensity. He often prayed for Israel, and, next to 
Jesus Christ, Jerusalem was his chief joy. To secure 
the salvation of the Jews he was willing to be accursed 
from Christ, as the Son was, in the estimation of men, 
accursed from the Father. He was willing, if possible, 
in order to save his kinsmen according to the flesh, to 
make another atonement on top of that made by our 
Lord Jesus. This is our exposition of Rom. ix. 3. 
How glad would this Hebrew patriot have been if the 
great Shepherd and Bishop of souls had appointed him 
pastor of the Jerusalem parish, where he would be 
brought constantly into association with his Hebrew 
brethren, and with tears and loving entreaties and 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 257 

cogent arguments, based on their own Scriptures, he 
could persuade them to receive Jesus as the promised 
Messiah. But it was not in the divine order that Paul 
should ever be the pastor of the Church of Christ in the 
Jewish capital. He was the chosen vessel in which the 
water of life was to be carried to the Gentiles, whom 
he had from childhood been taught to despise as out- 
casts from the divine regard, and to stigmatize as dogs, 
just as the haughty Turks now insult Christians with 
the same epithet. We are now prepared to feel the 
full force of Paul's self-gratulation because of the favor 
bestowed on him in permitting him to preach anywhere 
on earth, even in Dogtown, the unsearchable riches of 
Christ. How perfectly had the grace of Jesus Christ 
conquered and eradicated Paul's hereditary repugnance 
to all non-Hebrew peoples and substituted a world- 
embracing philanthropy — yea, even a passionate love 
for the most degraded and unlovely tribes of mankind! 
Were this spirit universally prevalent in the Christian 
Church, there would not be any lack of suitable volun- 
teers for foreign missions and for labor in the slums of 
our great cities ; and bishops, charged with the duty of 
distributing pastoral laborers to the best advantage to 
the kingdom of God, would be relieved of their chief 
perplexity— the endeavor to satisfy not a few who seek 
their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's. 

This brings us to our theme : — 

The subject matter of Gospel preaching — the un- 
searchable riches of Christ. 

Let us consider the unspeakable value of Christ's 
personal relation to every disciple. There were in 
Rome at this very time when Paul wrote these words 



258 JESUS EXULTANT. 

men so rich as to lavish myriads of money on a single 
public dinner, but these men were paupers when com- 
pared with the humblest man who was favored with 
the personal friendship of the Son of God. Beyond all 
value expressed in human symbols, silver and gold, is 
the personal regard of him who is the revelation of God 
to men. Dr. Wayland defines wealth as abundant 
means for the gratification of desire. Gold gratifies 
that range of desires which are called sensual, the natu- 
ral and artificial appetites, the lust of the eye, the pride 
of life, the love of power, the gratification of cultivated 
tastes by travel and gazing on the beautiful and the 
sublime in nature and art. But there is a higher 
range of desires which millions of gold cannot gratify. 
The spiritual aspirations demand a spiritual object. 
We must worship — this is attested by universal man 
— and we must love the object worshiped, if our re- 
ligion becomes a source of joy. To worship a being 
who excites only terror, is to be supremely wretched. 
President Warren has recently declared that more than 
half of mankind live in distressing dread of deified 
snakes and dragons. Parents transmit this superstition 
to their children. In every religion except Christianity 
fear predominates, not excepting Judaism, which is 
summed up in the prevailing Old Testament phrase, 
" The fear of Jehovah." The happy saints under Mosa- 
ism were an infinitesimal fraction of the whole Hebrew 
nation. When they were obedient God revealed him- 
self in mercy, but when in disobedience he made 
himself known in judgments. As they were more fre- 
quently disobedient, their conception of him became 
that which inspired dread in a higher degree than love. 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 259 

To reverse this God came into the sphere of our affec- 
tions, took upon himself our nature with faculties re- 
sponsive to our own, ministering food to the hungry 
crowds and healing to multitudes of the sick, weeping 
at the tombs of their dead and bringing them to life. 
Beyond this he illumined the darkened minds and par- 
doned the guilty souls. He gave the greatest possible 
proof of his love by his voluntary surrender of his own 
life that he might open to us the gate to life everlasting. 
Here is an object of adoration and worship whom we in- 
stinctively love. To withhold our love is to repress the 
noblest part of our nature. To refuse to love him is to 
dash from our lips the full goblet of happiness. Here 
is true riches satisfying man's noblest aspirations, while 
it inspires such economic virtues as tend to a full supply 
of all our lawful animal wants. All these things will 
Christ add to him who seeks the kingdom of God first. 
The riches of Christ not only fully satisfy, they also 
endure forever. Says the Old Testament preacher, 
Ecclesiastes (iii. 11, R. V. margin) " He hath set eter- 
nity in their heart." This is the true standard of all 
values. God has deeply rooted eternity in every hu- 
man heart, and every considerate man applies this test 
to all his acquirements and enjoyments. He asks, 
Is this object for which I have toiled and sacrificed 
ephemeral, or is it eternal ? If it is transitory and 
limited to the present life, it is of little comparative 
worth.* Wise men earnestly strive after that which 

* Jonathan Edwards in his youth wrote the commendable resolution to live 
not only for the highest happiness of the present hour, hut for his best well- 
being millions of ages hence. The result of this resolution faithfully kept 
through his life is well expressed by a writer in the Westminster Review : " From 
the days of Plato there has been no life of more simple and imposing grandeur 
than that of Jonathan Edwards." 



260 JESUS EXULTANT. 

can be carried with them along the ceaseless cycles of 
eternity. They have observed that Jesus Christ mints 
the only current coin that they can carry with them to 
the land of immortality. " The water that I shall give 
him shall be in him a well of water springing up into 
everlasting life." 

Let me ever drink of this water. Let me treasure 
up riches which will become inwrought in my immor- 
tal spirit. That vast multitude, who are in the mad 
rush and scramble for millions of money, have failed to 
note the important omission in the customary outfit of 
the body of one going into the grave. They do not put 
pockets in shrouds. You brought nothing into this 
world and it is certain you will carry nothing out — 
nothing plus character. If this is modeled after the 
character of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, you will go 
into eternity a mw^'-millionaire. O that men would 
put the correct estimate upon things in which they 
should have so deep a concern ! 

This is the chief work of the preacher to destroy false 
standards and to put the true standard in their place. 
In other words it is his great aim to get men to believe 
the words of Jesus Christ respecting building character 
and happiness on the rock or on the sand. 

We omit because we cannot adequately portray the 
blessedness of communion with the personal Christ. 
To the inexperienced we are mystical ; we are climbing 
the clouds and walking on the sky when we talk of con- 
scious intercourse with the invisible Christ at God's 
right hand. But it is a glorious reality. Human friend- 
ships decay with age. We who live in this changeful 
world must be careful to keep our friendships in repair 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 261 

lest they all perish and we are left in loneliness. But 
fellowship with Christ compensates for the loss of all 
other society. The Christian is the only one who can 
grow old cheerfully. He is going to his treasure. The 
aging worldling is going from his, and is sorrowful in- 
deed. Satan has no happy old men and women. We 
do not attempt to itemize and catalogue the unsearchable 
riches of Christ; for "all the treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge are hidden in him, in whom dwelleth all the 
fullness of the Godhead bodily." But we may mention 
some of the gifts which he has bestowed upon the whole 
human race. 

1. The continued existence of that race after the fall 
flows from the mediation of the Son of God. Justice 
demanded the extinction of mankind in the penal death 
of Adam and Eve in consequence of their sin. God 
could not be good and holy and just in bringing into 
being moral intelligences with a bent to sin, nor could 
it be honorable and right in him to create in a secondary 
way, or allow the procreation of such beings, under the 
dispensation of law un tempered with mercy and grace. 

The new basis on which the offspring of the sinning 
pair with inherited evil propensities are brought into 
being in harmony with the moral attributes of God, is 
distinctly declared to be the mediatorial work of the Son 
of God foreshadowed by the promise given, at the closed 
gate of Eden, to our guilty first parents : " The Seed of 
the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." Here the 
eye of faith foresees the Son of God come in the flesh, 
the corner-stone of a new heaven and a new earth in 
which righteousness and only righteousness shall ulti- 
mately dwell. Is life in this world, with the possibility 



262 JESUS EXULTANT. 

of a glorious immortality, an unspeakable boon ? It is 
to me, and I daily give thanks to my adorable Lord Je- 
sus for this precious gift. Many regard life as a burden, 
and gravely discuss the question, " Is life worth living ? " 
A life of rebellion against God is not worth living. But 
no one is obliged to live such a life. Every sinner has 
freely chosen a career of sin and sorrow when he might 
have elected a life of obedience and happiness. The 
best safeguard against the dreadful crime of self-destruc- 
tion is faith in Jesus Christ, and an unfaltering trust in 
his promise of the abiding Comforter here and of ever- 
lasting life hereafter. "In Greece, at the epoch of 
Alexander, it was the current saying, and one profoundly 
felt by all the best men, that the best thing of all was not 
to be born, and the next best to die."* This shows the 
awful gloom which paganism produces, " having no hope." 
2. Initial Salvation. The theologians call it pre- 
venient or provisional salvation. It includes all the 
gifts of God's grace administered by Jesus Christ to 
men unconditionally. (1) His atonement as a condi- 
tional substitute for the punishment of sin. This is the 
ground of the pardon of penitent believers. Provision- 
ally all are saved. Actually only those sinners are 
saved who appropriate this salvation by a faith which 
lays hold of the Personal Savior, inspires love, purifies 
the heart, transforms the character, and overcomes the 
world. All dying in infancy before accountability be- 
gins are unconditionally saved through the blood of 
Christ. More than half the human race are thus saved. 
Nearly half who are born in the whole world, Pagan and 
Christian, die before twelve months. 

* Moinmsen, History of Rome, Vol. IV. 586. 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 263 

Like a great magnet the Redeemer of the whole race 
attracts these infantile souls to himself. 

"I take these little ones, says he, 

And lay them in my breast; 
Protection can they find in me, 

With every blessing blest. 
Death may the bands of life unloose, 

But can't dissolve my love. 
Millions of infant souls compose 

The family above." 

Thus says the poet. What says the Savior? "Of 
such is the kingdom of heaven." What says the theo- 
logian Paul ? " As by the offense of one judgment 
came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the 
righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men 
unto justification of life" (Rom. v. 18). Guilt is not 
imputed until a voluntary and responsible choice of sin 
in preference to righteousness has been made. 

(2) The gracious ability to repent of sin is another 
unconditional gift of Christ. " Him hath God exalted 
to give repentance to Israel," and to all for whom he 
shed his blood. The value of this gift is not appre- 
ciated until the loathsomeness of sin is realized. It is 
the deadliness of the plague that enhances the value of 
the remedy. Consider the blight, the corruption, and 
the destruction wrought by sin, disturbing the just bal- 
ance of the powers, dethroning Conscience, God's vice- 
regent in the soul, and enthroning degrading appetites 
and despotic passions ; then will the power to break 
every fetter, and to throw off every yoke be appreciated 
by the individual. How terrible the social effects of sin, 
the wrongs which distress, the oppressions which crush, 



264 JESUS EXULTANT. 

the wars which desolate, the Armenian massacres which 
crimson human history from the murder of Abel to the 
present hour! All these sorrows and sufferings have 
come from the cocatrice's egg, sin. Could we see with 
God's eyes the unseen and unwritten pangs of guilty 
souls, the turpitude, the hideous disfigurement, the in- 
delible defilement of sin, we would shrink back in aston- 
ishment. Sin thrust the angels down from heaven, dug 
hell and lighted all its fires, thrust men out of Eden's 
bowers into a world of thorns and graves, and made the 
wide earth a potter's field to bury paupers and strangers 
in. Sin is the most striking object on which God looks 
down from heaven. Sin was the burden of every proph- 
et's vision. Sin was the Goliath that challenged the 
Son of God to mortal combat when he appeared on the 
earth. When John the Baptist saw him approaching 
the Jordan he hailed the victor over sin in words which 
thrilled the world of sinners with hope : " Behold the 
Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." 
When Jesus began to preach, his theme was sin, and his 
urgent exhortation was, "Repent." He works miracles, 
but his purpose is to show that he can forgive sins. 
He sees in the paralytic a deeper and deadlier malady, 
and he bids it depart, saying, " Thy sins are forgiven 
thee." He individualizes the whole race of men, groan- 
ing beneath a burden which they cannot lay down, and 
in tender compassion he utters the blessed invitation, 
" Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest." 

He groans beneath the sins of the world in Gethsem- 
ane, and endures the bloody sweat to place every man 
on a vantage ground where, if he will, he can conquer 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 265 

sin. On. the cross the theme which absorbs his thoughts, 
and makes him forget his own intense pain, is the sins 
of his murderers, and he prays, "Father, forgive them." 
No man can study the fourfold biography of Christ and 
fail to note the tremendous importance of the great gift 
of repentance. On the neglect or the right use of this 
gift hinge eternal destinies, heaven or hell, eternal life 
or eternal death. Without Christ's help no depraved 
soul can break the power of sin. All Neptune's great 
ocean cannot wash away its dreadful stains. But Jesus 
brings to me and to every one an unsearchable treas- 
ure found nowhere else in the whole universe. It is 
the grace by which I may turn away from the abomi- 
nable thing which God hateth. Jesus came to bless 
the entire race by turning every one from his iniquities. 
How crude and puerile the preference of many to be 
blessed in their iniquities till the last gasp of the earthly 
life, and then be taken, unwashed and unforgiven and 
impenitent, into a holy heaven to dwell in the presence 
of a holy God surrounded by holy angels to spend eter- 
nity in acts of worship which they abominated all their 
earthly life ! 

(3) The next unconditional gift to a world of sinners 
is the convicting agency of the Holy Spirit. It is true 
that conscience, a natural endowment, enables men to 
distinguish right from wrong and to feel compunction 
for wrong actions. But they need more than conscience 
to feel compunction for the seed of all sin, unbelief 
towards the Redeemer, who is the way, the only way, 
to reconciliation with God. Unbelief is not an act, but 
a state of fallen humanity. For this reason it does not 
call down the condemnation of conscience in the natural 



266 JESUS EXULTANT. 

man. Human law never takes cognizance of unbelief. 
It requires the special illumination of the Holy Spirit 
to realize its deep and damning guilt. Under the blaze 
of that light the unbelieving moralist discovers the 
truth and the justice of these declarations : " He that 
believeth not is condemned already, because he hath 
not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of 
God : He that believeth not God hath made him a liar ; 
because he believeth not the record that God gave of 
his Son . . . that eternal life is in his Son." It is not 
the office of the Spirit to supersede the New Testa- 
ment, by revealing the historical Christ, his words and 
works, but to accompany the Gospel record, and the 
evangelical ministry, and to make Christian truth real 
to the reader and the hearer. Thus he awakens a sense 
of guilt for religious indifference, and for neglect of 
Christ. If he is the Son of God, one with him in na- 
ture, he is worthy of worship, trust, and obedience. If 
he by his atoning death has become the sinner's bene- 
factor, a cold disregard of him is the blackest ingrati- 
tude. 

3. Let us now consider the conditional gifts which 
flow from the unsearchable riches of Christ : — 

(1) Among these we note the forgiveness of sins. 
This is not exclusively a New Testament privilege, for 
it is found in the Old Testament also. The ancient 
philosophies all taught the impossibility of a righteous 
forgiveness of the guilty. "Penalty," said they, "must 
inevitably follow sin, just as the cart-wheel rolls in the 
track of the ox," and as pain follows the infraction of 
any physical law. Natural law carried into the spirit- 
ual realm would entirely preclude forgiveness of sin. 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 267 

The dictum of philosophy is against remission of the 
penalty of sin. Ethics has no place for pardon. With- 
out the atonement it would neutralize law and overturn 
God's moral government. The blood of Christ renders 
the conditional pardon of transgression a safe thing for 
the author and protector of moral law. The condition 
is the faith of the heart, not of the head merely, but a 
faith which instrumentally inspires newness of life. 
There is a unique phrase in Paul's great theological 
epistle — " justification unto life." Thus spiritual life 
is imparted at the moment of the forgiveness of sins. 
This brings us to another gift depending on the right 
use of our freedom. 

(2) The new birth is a work of the Spirit in us, while 
pardon is a work done for us, taking place in the mind 
of God. " This change in us is the great safeguard of 
forgiveness. The governor who proclaims amnesty to 
rebels has no such safeguard. He cannot create them 
anew and make them loyal citizens. The priest who in 
the confessional absolves the penitent " of all his sins in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit," cannot inspire the regenerate life, and thus 
guard against the abuse of absolution as an encourage- 
ment to continue in sin, because its guilt is so easily 
canceled. God never pardons till he sees real repent- 
ance and a genuine loathing of sin. Also he accom- 
panies forgiveness with the implantation of love to the 
Lawgiver, which insures obedience to the Divine law. 
This love is not developed from a germ of natural good- 
ness. It comes from above. It is shed abroad in the 
heart by the Holy Spirit, beginning the reconstruction 
of the soul in loyalty and holiness. Various are the 



268 JESUS EXULTANT. 

figures of speech under which it is described in the 
Holy Scriptures. It is emancipation from slavery. 
" If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free in- 
deed." It is a new creation. " If any man be in Christ 
he is a new creature : the old things are passed away ; 
behold they are become new " (2 Cor. v. 17, B. J 7 ".). It 
is a resurrection from the dead. "If ye be risen with 
Christ, set your affections on things above." It is the 
new birth, or birth from above. It is the circumcision 
of the heart, called also " the circumcision of Christ," 
because he is the author through the Holy Spirit. It is 
the stony heart changed into a heart of flesh. It is the 
inscription of God's law " in the inward parts." It is 
translation out of darkness into marvelous light. It is 
putting the Gospel leaven into the three measures of 
meal, — intellect, sensibilities, and will, — to assimilate 
the whole man to the image of the Son of God. It is 
putting off the old man and putting on the new. It is 
initial purification by water as by the washing of regen- 
eration preparatory to that final and thorough purgation 
by the fiery baptism of the Holy Ghost. " Ye have 
purified your souls in obeying the truth through the 
Spirit." Thus we see that truth believed and obeyed is 
the instrument of this great change in the hand of the 
Holy Spirit, the Divine transformer. By the new birth 
men become partakers of the Divine nature as children 
of God. We live in an age in which liberalists, so-called, 
and some called evangelical, talk about the Fatherhood 
of God as including all men as his children, in the New 
Testament sense, whether regenerate or unregenerate. 
Whereas Christ speaks of sonship to God as the distin- 
guishing mark of believers, the peculiar and unspeakable 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 269 

privilege of those who receive him. " Unto as many as 
received him did he give power, right, prerogative, to 
become sons of God, even to them that believe on his 
name." This evidently excludes all others from this 
spiritual sonship. Still more positive is this exclusion 
in these words of Christ, " No man knoweth the Son, 
but the Father ; neither knoweth any man the Father, 
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth (is 
pleased — Wesley) to reveal him" as Father. Observe 
that this special revelation is to the individual. Jesus 
is not speaking of that general revelation of God to the 
human race by the incarnation, but of the filial feeling 
inspired by the Holy Spirit in the heart of every one 
who comes to him in penitent faith weary and heavy 
laden. Sonship is a treasure in the keeping of Christ 
for such souls only. To these is the joyful certitude of 
the Fatherhood of God made known. 

(3) This knowledge by the Spirit of adoption is the 
next item to be specified and dwelt upon as a part of 
"the unsearchable riches of Christ." Because ye are 
sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our 
hearts, crying, "Abba, Father." Before the mission 
and message of John Wesley, it was taught that the 
cry of the Spirit was only in the Bible revealing the 
marks of the new birth from which the seeker of salva- 
tion, if he found similar marks in his own heart, might 
infer that he had grounds for a hope that he would be 
saved at last. Wesley emphasized the place of the 
Spirit's cry, " in our hearts," thus affording positive 
assurance, beyond a doubt, that we are adopted into 
the Divine family. This immediate contact of the Holy 
Spirit with my spirit is the essential and vital element 



270 JESUS EXULTANT. 

of the Wesleyan movement. It is called the direct wit- 
ness of the Spirit which inspires love, joy, peace, and 
all the other fruit of the Spirit which follow the cry, 
" Abba, Father," and afford a basis for the inference 
that I am saved. This fruit of the Spirit is the indirect 
witness of the Spirit, needful as a safeguard against 
presumption, and mistaking something else for the voice 
of the Spirit. 

The disciples after Pentecost went everywhere preach- 
ing the knowledge of forgiveness of sins. This accounts 
for their happiness and their joyful endurance of per- 
secution. " Ye took joyfully the spoiling of your pos- 
sessions, knowing that ye yourselves have a better 
possession and an abiding one " (Heb. x. 34, R. V.). 
The margin reads thus, "knowing that ye have your 
own selves for a better possession." What a dignity and 
worth the Gospel imparts ! What certitude attends the 
Spirit's message of salvation, making the fact of my 
adoption into God's family as sure as that of my per- 
sonal existence, or any other fact of intuition ! 

Various metaphors are used to describe this testimony of 
the Spirit, the chief of which are the earnest and the seal. 
The earnest is a sum of money paid to bind the bargain. 
It is also a pledge that the full payment will be made 
when the service has been rendered or the goods have 
been delivered. It must be remembered that a part of 
the blessedness of the Gospel lies beyond the grave, the 
resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Are these 
blessings held by naked faith without any present token 
in aid of faith ? No. Let us praise the Lord for that 
help to faith in the earnest of the Spirit as the divinely 
appointed and comforting assurance that things to come 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 271 

after death are ours. " In whom also after that ye be- 
lieved, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, 
which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemp- 
tion of the purchased possession," elsewhere explained 
as the redemption of the body from the power of the 
grave. A careful reading of this Scripture shows us in 
what this earnest consists. The Spirit is Christ's earnest 
and seal ; for he seals believers not by the Spirit, as an 
agent, but with the Spirit, as an instrument. The con- 
scious presence of the Spirit in our hearts is our constant 
surety of the resurrection and eternal well-being. 
" Now he that hath wrought us for the self same thing 
is God, who hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. 
Therefore we are always confident," always saved from 
doubt, "knowing that, whilst we are at home in the 
body, we are absent from the Lord ; for we walk by 
faith, not by sight." Lest faith should weaken and 
fail in our long absence from the visible and glorified 
Jesus, while wishing rather to be absent from the body 
and to be present with the Lord, Christ stays our faith 
and cheers our longing hearts by the gift of the indwell- 
ing Comforter. The Christian who has not this gift is 
not claiming his full heritage of the unspeakable riches 
of Christ. 

4. Another gift of Christ is purity of heart. Some 
deem this too great a gift for our mighty Savior to be- 
stow on us while we dwell in houses of clay. This 
seems to be the remnant of that dualistic philosophy 
which the Gnostics early incorporated into Christianity 
to its great detriment. There is no moral evil inherent 
in matter. The body is as capable of sanctification as 
the souL When the human spirit is entirely purified 



272 JESUS EXULTANT. 

from the inherited propensity to sin the body becomes 
the instrument of the sanctified will by which the natu- 
ral appetites are chastened, and artificial appetites are 
purged away. 

The relation of Christ to sanctification is found in the 
efficacy of his atonement, and in the sufficiency of the 
agent whom he provides, the Holy Spirit, the efficient 
inward worker. Jesus Christ is provisionally the Re- 
generator and Sanctifier of all mankind. . He really re- 
generates and sanctifies only those who receive the Holy 
Spirit in these respective operations. It is Christ's part 
of entire sanctification to provide the means, his own 
blood, and the agent, the Holy Spirit. It is our part to 
secure by our faith the act of the Spirit applying to us 
the cleansing efficacy of the atonement. Hence there 
is a sense in which we are to " cleanse ourselves from 
all filthiness of the flesh and spirit." We are to link 
ourselves to the sanctifier by faith. We are to place 
ourselves beneath the purifying stream. 

After the great work has been wrought we need 
the gift of wisdom to guide our imperfect judgments, 
which it is not the province of sanctification to render 
infallible. 

Christ is made unto us wisdom. His wisdom be- 
comes ours when we believe all his words, and obey his 
commands, and follow his example. This is the short 
and sure road to wisdom. The follies which disfigure 
men, and deprave and destroy the individual and soci- 
ety, would all disappear if all mankind would persever- 
ingly trust in Jesus Christ. Life is a school in which 
all may become wise. There is only one way by which 
we can appropriate the riches of Christ — the way of 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 273 

faith. Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. It elects 
the best end and applies the best means for its attain- 
ment. 

It is related that a young man, half-witted, the heir 
of a little money, succeeded, to the surprise of every- 
body, in multiplying it till he became a millionaire. 
How ? He watched a shrewd, successful man and imi- 
tated him in all his investments in real estate, and in 
stocks of various kinds. Thus using another man's wis- 
dom he became very rich. If you wish to keep out of 
the eternal poorhouse of lost souls, and to have treas- 
ures of the gold tried in the fire, watch Jesus Christ, 
and do as he did, borrow his wisdom and you will 
attain his eternal wealth. 

In this world of bewildering fallacies, where myriads 
of false lights are luring to destruction, we inexperi- 
enced and short-lived mortals may be saved from fatal 
experiments by availing ourselves of God's experience, 
and by faith in him, seize success in this life and lay 
hold of eternal life. What is success? Not money, 
nor fame, nor power, nor knowledge, but saintly char- 
acter. It takes faith, great faith, to choose this as the 
aim of all effort and to persist from youth to old age in 
making a straight run toward this prize. Such in the 
sight of God and his holy angels are the only true 
heroes on the earth. Not one of them escapes God's 
notice. He wishes to see more. " The eyes of the 
Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show 
himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect 
toward him." 2 Chron. xvi. 9. If there are no such 
characters on the earth it would seem to be unwise to 
b.e on the constant lookout to find them and give them 



274 JESUS EXULTANT. 

a lift in times of special need. The words just quoted 
were in rebuke of one who had " done foolishly." 

The unsearchable riches of Christ become more and 
more manifest amid the adversities, the losses, the be- 
reavements and sufferings of life, just as the splen- 
dors of the starry heavens become visible in darkness. 
When worldly possessions vanish, and health fails, and 
our loved ones sink into the grave, and we begin to 
realize that all earthly foundations must soon fail, then 
it is that Jesus Christ, " the same yesterday, to-day and 
forever," is indeed " the Rock of Ages," worth more to 
an immortal soul standing thereon than all the material 
universe. Death, our last enemy, is conquered by him 
who is the resurrection and the life, whom to know in 
the evangelical sense is life everlasting. This is being 
rich enough. It just fills out the meaning of that freshly 
coined word "multi-millionaire." 

We do not deprecate the accumulation of capital for 
the great enterprises of men, covering the oceans with 
steamships, and the continents with swiftly moving 
streams of commerce. These appliances of our Chris- 
tian civilization have their place, but they are no part 
of the believer's true riches. They do not satisfy even 
the unbeliever in whose heart the Creator has set eter- 
nity as the only correct measure of values. 

5. We have not time to speak of the deliverance 
from the fear of death, which the believer enjoys in ad- 
vance, and the complete victory which crowns him on 
his dying bed ; of the glorious resurrection of the body 
at the coming of the Son of Man to judge the world ; of 
the boldness of the disciple of Christ in that great day, 
conscious that he is conformed to the moral image of 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 275 

the Son of God who will not condemn fac similes of 
himself ; and of the crown of life eternal enthroned with 
our elder brother sharing the throne of his Father. 

If, as I have endeavored to show, Christ is the only 
object which can fully and eternally satisfy desire, and 
hence, according to President Wayland, the only true 
riches, it remains for me to inquire individually, are you 
in possession of this riches ? Are you to-day according 
to God's standard a rich man, or a pauper? It is not 
agreeable to men who have thought that they were rich, 
and in need of nothing, to confess bankruptcy. Spiri- 
tual bankruptcy is never acknowledged by anybody who 
does not buy of God, the divine collyrium. " I counsel 
thee to buy of me gold refined in the fire that thou may- 
est become rich, and eye-salve to anoint thine eyes, that 
thou mayest see." To see yourself as related to eternal 
realities is worth more to you now than all the gold in 
the Bank of England, for you may now seek and find 
the true riches ; you may now buy God's gold. In the 
financial history of New York City there stands out a 
terrible day called black Friday, when a few greedy 
men made a corner on gold when specie payment was 
suspended, and brought down financial ruin on scores, 
if not hundreds, of gold speculators who did not see the 
plot and escape. They must in an hour buy gold or 
become bankrupt; but gold could not be had except 
at a ruinous price. It was ruin to buy and was disaster 
not to buy. Thus they went down in an hour. An- 
other black Friday is coming when men will find out 
that they must have God's gold when it is too late. 
God's gold is on sale only in this life, not in the world 
bo come. 



276 JESUS EXULTANT. 

Our subject throws a flood of light on the one abso- 
lutely inexhaustible theme of the evangelical preacher 
in whom the Son of God has been revealed by the 
promised Paraclete, glorifying Christ and showing to 
the anointed eye his matchless beauty and worth. A 
preacher's experience determines his choice of themes. 
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 
He who, like Paul, has that inward revelation of Christ 
will, like that great apostle, not confer with flesh and 
blood, will not consult men about the topics of his pul- 
pit discourses. After he has been on the Mount of 
Transfiguration, and had a vision of the glorified Christ, 
he will never run short of pulpit themes, even though 
he should preach half a century to the same congrega- 
tion. He will find no necessity for diluting or watering 
the Gospel to extend it over many years without the 
tedium of wearisome repetition. To him Christ will be 
a theme ever new so long as he dwells on the Mount, and 
gazes with rapture upon him who is the chief among 
ten thousand and the one altogether lovely. Such a 
preacher will be constantly ministering to the deepest 
needs of his hearers. He will not lack an audience. 
Says Jesus, " When I am lifted up I will draw all men 
unto me." A simple, earnest, warm, and sympathetic 
herald of Christ will never need to advertise ephemeral 
secular themes, gathered from yesterday's daily paper, or 
to magnify the excellences of the quartette and soloist 
hired from the opera in order to attract an audience. 

Daily discovering new beauties in Christ, and daily 
experiencing new joys in conscious companionship with 
him, the preacher will come to his pulpit with Christ in 
his heart and on his tongue as a new theme. This sup- 



THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES. 277 

poses in every preacher a deep spirituality, a heart sur- 
charged with power from on high. Do you ask " How 
may I get such a heart " ? Bow down before the Spirit 
of grace, of truth, and power, and importunately and 
trustfully pray, — 

" For me thy boundless gifts I claim, 
The heart of zeal, the tongue of flame: 
To me the wisdom give, and love, 
That blend the serpent with the dove. 
O bring thy rich endowments near, 
Of counsel, might, and holy fear. 
Spirit of fire, pervade, enfold, 
Consume the dross, refine the gold; 
Spirit of life and light, display 
Salvation's full and finished day, 
That my own gladdened soul may share 
The gospel-wealth my lips declare." 

Such a prayer offered with the pure desire to glorify 
Christ before the eyes of the sinful race whom he has 
redeemed cannot fail. If you are called to preach, there 
is an equipment, an endowment, a panoply in the arsenal 
of God belonging to you. Claim it and put it on and 
wear it evermore. 



278 JESUS EXULTANT. 



CHAPTER XV. 

KNOWING BY OBEYING.* 

The Revisers have done excellent service to this text. 
They have brought into prominence the pivotal word 
which is obscured in our Authorized version and slurred 
over as a simple sign of the future tense of the verb 
to do. "If any man will do" should be "If any man 
willeth to do." It is not the bare performance of God's 
outward commands, but the right attitude of any man's 
will, which will give him certitude respecting Christ's 
doctrine. He must be brought into ethical harmony 
with God in singleness of purpose and perfect self- 
surrender, if he desires to be led on to that faith in 
Christ which ends in a satisfactory and certain knowl- 
edge of the divine character of his teaching. Men are 
not always in a condition to do God's will, but they can 
will to do God's will always, even as did the penitent 
thief on the cross. His hand was not free, but his heart 
was obedient. 

This utterance of Jesus is of great value inasmuch as 
he teaches that obedience is requisite to saving faith, 
and this faith is crowned with a joyful assurance. Obe- 
dience is the root of faith, and faith is the seed of all 
spiritual knowledge. Christ tells us in the text how 
this seed may sprout and bud and blossom and ripen 
into the fruitage of assurance. It is not pleasant for a 

* " If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether 
it be of God, or whether I speak from myself." John vii. 27 R. Y. 



KNOWING BY OBEYING. 279 

preacher to assume that he is addressing any skeptic. 
We will not make any such assumption. Skepticism in 
our times does not often go to church. We will assume 
that all our hearers assent to Christ's claim to be the 
Revelation of God, and are desirous of arriving at a cer- 
tainty excluding all doubts respecting both the divine 
origin of Christianity and their personal salvation. The 
question which challenged the investigation of every 
Jew confronts each of us and demands an answer : " Does 
Jesus speak from himself as a mere fallible man, or is he 
the mouthpiece of God for the expression of immutable 
truth ? Was his humanity a veil in which the Son of 
God dwelt, receiving the truth from his Father on one 
side of the veil, and handing it out to mankind on the 
other side? Does the Gospel bear the image and su- 
perscription of man, or of God ? " This is an inquiry 
which should awaken the most intense interest in every 
inhabitant of the globe. Values inconceivable, estates 
imperishable, are involved in this interrogatory. If all 
your earthly substance, the earnings and savings of all 
your active life, were sold for one bank note, with what 
caution and carefulness you would examine that note 
to determine first its genuineness and then the character 
of the bank to ascertain its solvency. You would ex- 
haust all sources of knowledge, you would question all 
the experts accessible. The New Testament is God's 
bank note issued to you, involving not only temporal 
values but eternal well being. Especially important is 
this examination on your part, since the value of Christi- 
anity to you individually, after you have proved its heav- 
enly origin, is dependent on your own faith, the attitude 
of your own will toward the personal Christ. Your lack 



280 JESUS EXULTANT. 

of faith in a genuine bank note does not destroy its 
value so long as the bank is solvent and will give you 
its face in gold. But your personal faith is absolutely 
necessary to you, if you wish to realize the transcendent 
worth of Christianity to you personally, after your rea- 
son is convinced of its truth. This kind of faith always 
implies a will submissive to God's will. It is true that 
your distrust of a genuine bank bill does not damage 
its real value, but it is detrimental to you and destruc- 
tive of all benefit to you, if it causes you to sell it to 
the rag-collector for a penny a pound, or to regard it as 
worthless and to keep it forever from the counter of the 
bank where you might exchange it for gold coin. This 
is the condition of multitudes in Christian lands. They 
do not have faith in Christ sufficient to induce a com- 
plete submission of the will to God. Hence they live 
4n the land of doubts and darkness. They are paupers 
with millions of gold on deposit awaiting their demand. 
Just as confidence in a bank whose notes are in your 
pocket is requisite to prompt you to present them for 
the coin, so is faith in God's promises a necessary con- 
dition of your reception of the salvation that he offers. 
He who believeth persistently shall be saved. Let not 
the man who wavereth think he will receive anything 
from God. He does not ask us to believe without suffi- 
cient evidence, nor does he ask us to obey him without 
a proper knowledge of his character. When he says, 
" This is my only begotten and well-beloved Son, hear 
him, believe in him as ye believe in me," he affords 
abundant proofs of the Godhood of the Son, who came 
into the world with the Father's great seal of miracles 
in his hand. His sinlessness amid a race of sinners 



KNOWING BY OBEYING. 28i 

demonstrates his heavenly origin. His resurrection 
according to his own prediction establishes beyond any 
reasonable doubt the truth, " He who hath seen me hath 
seen the Father ; I and my Father are one." Though 
the argument is cogent, and the scriptural proofs are 
convincing, yet there is a still more satisfactory demon- 
stration that Jesus is the Divine Savior, experience of 
his power to save, and to certify the fact by the testi- 
mony of the Holy Spirit crying in the heart " Abba, 
Father." 

An obedient will puts the soul into harmony with 
God and his moral universe. It puts eye-salve upon 
men's eyes and they clearly see. Our text, in teaching 
that knowledge comes through the will, upsets all the 
mental philosophies. None of them has ever made the 
will anything more than the executive of man's person- 
ality. But Jesus teaches that the will is the organ of 
spiritual perception, the highest knowledge. At least 
its right action is the condition of such knowledge. The 
highest Christian evidences are not logical, but experi- 
mental, and are accessible to the Uncle Toms and Dread 
Scotts, illiterate slaves, as well as to the Isaac Newtons 
and John Lockes of science and philosophy. The most 
cultivated intellect refusing to bow to God's commands 
inevitably misses that knowledge which the humble and 
God-fearing slave easily receives, because his nature is 
open God-ward. Says the Psalmist, without any boast- 
ing, "I am wiser than the ancients, because I keep thy 
law." Says Pascal, "The heart has its reasoning which* 
the reason knows nothing of." This is the substance 
of Balfour's " Foundation of Belief." There are in our 
text several assumptions : — 



282 JESUS EXULTANT. 

1. Christ's doctrines are worthy of examination and 
of reception, if they are from God. No man can be an 
honest, religious inquirer who ignores that religious 
teacher who has subverted the Grecian and Roman 
mythologies, changed the course of history, and laid the 
foundation of modern civilization. To neglect Christ 
is to repress your noblest instincts and to antagonize 
your clearest moral intuitions. Man is a religious being. 
He must elect one of the many religions of which the 
world is full. To refuse to bow the knee to some object 
of worship is to become an Atheist, a monstrosity. To 
which one of the rival gods will you bow? The twelve 
greater gods of mythology were driven from Olympus 
fifteen centuries ago, Jupiter, Juno, Venus, Apollo, and 
the rest. Will you turn to one of the modern pagan 
gods, as Buddha of India? Or will you adopt the 
religion of the sensual and bloody Mahomet, or become 
a disciple of Confucius, who has made the millions of 
China a stagnant pool among the nations of the world? 
There is a religion which prizes and transforms the 
individual, quickens the intellect, purifies morals, in- 
spires liberty, organizes free constitutions, founds com- 
mon schools, builds hospitals, and ministers to suffering 
humanity everywhere on earth. We need not call its 
name. It arose upon the world like the sunrise with a 
self-evidencing power so impressive as to extort from 
all thoughtful and candid men the exclamation, u This 
is the Sun, all other lights are mere phosphorescent ex- 
halations from the swamps of the earth, deceiving the 
hopes of the benighted race of men." We need no 
candle to see this sunrise. He lights his own pathway 
through the skies with the splendors which he pours 



KNOWING BY OBEYING. 283 

forth. Thus the historic Christ arose, and thus he 
manifests himself to the consciousness of the believer as 
the day star arising in the heart. To the believing soul 
Jesus is the revelation of the true God. The Holy 
Spirit inwardly reveals him so enstamped with the 
marks and badges of Divinity that all other lights be- 
come dim before his brightness. His matchless symme- 
try of character, his self-sacrificing philanthropy, his 
spotless purity, his infinite superiority to all others who 
claim worship, leave us with no alternative but Jesus 
or Atheism. The skeptics are so impressed with this 
fact that they are endeavoring to explain the character 
of Christ on the plane of naturalism, to classify him as 
a mere man, to destroy, pervert, or explain his unique 
Person. This is the Herculean task of Liberalism, to 
explain away that divine Personality which has burst 
into the world, changing the color of the whole stream 
of history, and creating a golden milestone for the 
course of time to which all events in human annals 
must be referred, as if nothing had preceded it. 

2. We note another assumption in the text. The 
will of God is so far known to every soul as to make it 
morally accountable. To the Hebrews God revealed 
his commands through revelation. They were required 
to bow to the mandates of Jehovah. We are assured in 
our text that every devout Jew who had thus obeyed 
would be drawn into so strong sympathy with Jesus 
and into so complete identity of will with that of the 
Father that he would immediately discover the truth of 
the teaching of Christ by a kind of spiritual intuition 
arising from spiritual affinity. All truly spiritual minds 
in the Hebrew nation did receive him as the promised 



284 JESUS EXULTANT. 

Messiah. The same is true of the pagan world to-day. 
All who have the spirit of faith and hunger for right- 
eousness are disposed to receive Jesus Christ as the object 
of their faith when his Gospel is first clearly made 
known. This is because the moral law which is incar- 
nated in him is also imbedded in our nature though 
fallen. All pagans who hearken to its voice are listen- 
ing to an echo of the voice of the Son of God through 
whom they were created. Hence Jesus affirms that 
every truly conscientious person, Jew or Gentile, who 
desires to do right and wills to obey his moral convic- 
tions, will infallibly recognize Christ as his Savior and 
Lord, when his Gospel is presented to him. Immanuel 
Kant affirmed that the two things which awakened in 
his bosom the highest emotions of sublimity were the 
starry heavens above and the moral law within. Daniel 
Webster testified that his most sublime thought was 
man's responsibility to God. Natural religion, or the 
religion of conscience, is sufficient to render all men 
everywhere accountable to the moral Governor of the 
universe. "For when the Gentiles, which have not the 
(written) law, do by nature the things contained in 
the law, these having not the law are a law unto them- 
selves ; which show the work (essence) of the law writ- 
ten in their hearts" (Rom. ii. 14, 15). Such Gentiles 
are " of the truth." Jesus says, " every one who is of 
the truth," disposed to follow wherever truth leads, 
"heareth my voice," i.e., obeys me. There is no ex- 
ception. Hence there can be no such character as an 
honest skeptic. If he is honest now, he has not always 
followed his best light, even though it be the starlight 
of Nature. At some point in his history he has seen his 



KNOWING BY OBEYING. 285 

duty and refused to do it fearing unpleasant conse- 
quences. This refusal lias dulled his moral perception 
so that he does not recognize the Truth when she puts 
on the vesture of flesh and walks forth in the form of 
the sinless Son of God. Willful sin spreads a film over 
the eye of the soul. Hence no man who has willfully 
sinned even once, can set up the plea of perfect honesty 
in his neglect of Jesus Christ. Not till there is heart- 
felt repentance of that sin will the power of a clear spir- 
itual perception be restored by the grace of God. Liv- 
ing in a skeptical age we fail to find one unregenerate 
person who declares that he now wills to do all the 
known will of God, and that he has always and invari- 
ably thus willed. Hence we say there are no honest 
and innocent unbelievers. It is said that a man may 
repeat a falsehood so many years that he may come at 
last to believe his own lie. But this does not lessen 
his responsibility, nor does it prove that he is now an 
honest man. The Gospel of Christ commends itself to" 
every man's conscience, just as the theorem in geometry 
and the multiplication table commend themselves to 
every man's reason. The careless boy who learns this 
table incorrectly cannot be an accurate accountant till 
he has eliminated from his memory this streak of false- 
hood. It is just so with the man who insists that his 
conscience does not prompt him to show by love and 
obedience his gratitude to Jesus Christ his Divine Bene- 
factor and Savior. 

The eye that sees no beauty in the rainbow is a de- 
fective eye. The soul that sees no loveliness in Christ 
has a perverted moral sense. No soul can set up the 
plea that he came honestly by this perversity till he has 



286 JESUS EXULTANT. 

shown that it is not the product of his own will in trans- 
gressing some known law of God. " Ye will not come 
unto me that ye may have life," said Jesus to students 
of the Scriptures seeking eternal life in the Old Testa- 
ment, while rejecting the Giver of eternal life with 
manifest marks of divinity written in every feature and 
in every word and deed. "The Scriptures testify of 
me, and yet ye will not come to me that ye may have 
eternal life." Our text recognizes the fact that there 
is more than one will in the universe. A free will is a 
cause uncaused, a first cause, of its own moral acts. 
When God created the first moral intelligence, he intro- 
duced the possibility of moral discord commonly called 
sin. Every free agent in probation may, by a deadlock 
of his will with God's will, obstruct his own salvation, 
and commit moral suicide. The possibility of such a 
result cannot be avoided in a moral system. Risks 
always attend freedom. To eliminate this risk would 
be to reduce the moral system to a mechanical system in 
r hich the Maker is the only responsible being, yea, and 
the only person. All things would move smoothly in 
such a universe. There would be eternal harmony, 
with no discord grating on the ear, no desire or purpose 
clashing with the will of God. There would be no 
suffering, because there could be no sin ; and there 
could be no sin, because there is no freedom. Nor 
could there be any acceptable praise from a universe of 
puppets acting only as they are acted upon by the man- 
ager behind the scenes. God had such a universe once 
before he created angels and men. The whole material 
world, every particle of matter in the remotest fixed star, 
obeyed the Creator's will. But he was not satisfied with 



KNOWING BY OBEYING. 287 

the obedience of mechanical necessity. It afforded no 
scope for the display and exercise of his moral attributes. 
He wished creatures capable of bearing his image, be- | 
ings having personality and faculties responsive to his 
own, beings with whom he could commune. Such be- 
ings must be free, for God is free. In probationary 
beings freedom to stand is inseparable from freedom to 
fall. This is saying that sin under such conditions is 
possible, not necessary. Into such a universe no suffer- 
ing could come except through the gateway of some 
will setting itself against God. What a sad and event- 
ful hour was that when the first will arose in rebellion 
against the moral Governor of the world ! It requires 
no prophet's eye to foresee the unutterable woe which 
must follow the collision of the creature with the Creator. 
When the collision came on the earth, the Son of Goa 
appeared in the robes of humanity to persuade his mor- 
tal kinsmen to obey the scepter in the hand of omnipo- 
tent love, rather than to render an eternal, unwilling- 
submission to the rod in the hand of justice. To pre- 
vent a disaster so appalling was an occasion worthy of 
the interposition of God the Father Almighty, who so 
loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. 
Behold the suffering which wrung the Father's heart 
in the surrender of the Son of his eternal love. In the 
atonement mark the removal of the barriers against par- 
don on the God-ward side, and the melting suasives 
applied to men to remove their hardness, disarm their 
hate, dispel their fears, and draw them to a penitent 
submission to God, and a glad enthronement of his Son 
as both Savior and Lord. The whole range of possible 
motives is appealed to, hope and fear. While Sinai 



288 JESUS EXULTANT. 

""""^threatens, Calvary invites. Jesus uncovers the abyss 
of woe, and bids the sinner look upon the undying 
worm and the unquenchable fire. He also parts the 
clouds above, and bids him hear the angels in the pres- 
ence of his Father rejoice over one sinner that repent- 
eth. He goes about doing good to the souls and bodies 
of men, that he may draw their wills into submission to 
his Father. When he sees that all his work of love, all 
his instructions and arguments, are unavailing, he weeps 
over his beloved Jerusalem in view of that pitiless storm 
of wrath which would so soon come down upon the 
Holy City. 

Methinks I see the adorable Lamb of God, just before 
he leaves the mercy-seat and mounts the throne of 
final judgment, look down from some heavenly Olivet, 
and with tearful eyes exclaim, " O rebellious men, re- 
bellious men, how often I would have gathered you, 
but ye would not." Here the human will defeats the 
N^_merciful and saving purpose of our adorable Savior. 

Omnipotence has its limitations. Wisdom and love 
set bounds to the exercise of power. God is too wise 
to attempt to create loyalty by almightiness, and He is 
too good to crush out freedom of will and reduce a 
man to a machine, in order to save him from hell, and 
he is too pure to enthrone a vile soul in a holy heaven, 
and to compel unholiness to dwell forever in the pres- 
ence of His own spotless purity. Banishment from God 
would be a mercy to such a soul. Freedom of moral 
choice is a right which our Creator will ever sacredly 
respect. 

The great problem of salvation involves the ques- 
tion, how to bring all human wills into accord with 



KNOWING BY OBEYING. 289 

God's will. Hence we are all taught to pray, "Thy 
will be done in earth as it is in heaven." The whole 
scheme of the Gospel, in all its provisions, doctrines, and 
motives, under the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, is 
adapted to secure this harmony of wills by the glad 
surrender of man to God. If the present dispensation 
fails to sway any human will, it is certain that the visi- 
ble reign of the Son of God on the earth would fail to 
do anything more than to constrain unwilling souls into 
a sullen and unloving submission to a majesty and 
power which it would not be good policy to resist. 
The present dispensation of the invisible Christ influ- 
encing men by his representative, the Paraclete, best 
conserves that balance of motives requisite for the free 
action of the will in its choice of a spontaneous obedi- 
ence to God, aided, but not compelled, by Divine grace. 
The risen Jesus has been exalted, not to necessitate 
repentance, but to give the gracious ability to repent 
and claim by faith the remission of sins. We believe 
that this is the best state of probation for a fallen race, 
redeemed by the blood of God's only begotten Son; 
that it is best adapted to test the question of our loyalty 
to Christ, and to develop stalwart Christian characters. 
Our faith in God's wisdom and love constrains us to 
believe that he has adopted the best means to persuade 
sinners to repent and to receive Jesus Christ, and that 
this best method will continue till he descends to the 
general judgment to pronounce the final sentence upon 
the righteous and the wicked. — -. 

The doctrine that spiritual insight or the capacity to 
receive spiritual truth comes from a will in accord with 
the Divine will is only another way of saying that sym- 



290 JESUS EXULTANT. 

pathy with the truth is requisite to a vision of truth, 
that obedience lifts the soul out of darkness into the 
marvelous light. Then Christ stands forth apart from 
all created beiDgs as the truth itself, manifested in 
humanity in order that the truth may be more perfectly 
manifested to humanity. Thus seen with the two eyes 
of obedience and faith Jesus Christ, the fountain and 
essence of truth, ceases to be a vague and shadowy 
being, but he becomes a glorious reality. Viewed with 
the intellect only he is without substance and comeli- 
-ness, "and there is no beauty that we should desire 
him." Obedience sets an electric arc light in the soul, 
dispelling all shadows and illusions, and setting Christ 
forth as a bright reality. It has been well said that if 
a person should pull up doubt by the root he would 
find a sin at the end of it as the seed from which it 
sprung. Doing God's will, therefore, is the shortest 
road out of the wilderness of doubt. 

3. As a safeguard against fanaticism we call atten- 
tion to the fact that Jesus does not promise that obedi- 
ent souls will have new revelations of spiritual truths, 
but that they will be perfectly assured of the Divine 
origin of truths already accredited as inspired. They 
will know all vital Christian truths when they know 
Jesus Christ as the truth. In addition the Holy Spirit 
will reveal such personal facts as the pardon of sins and 
purity of heart — facts fundamental to salvation in its 
two great stages of regeneration and entire sanctifica- 
tion. We do not assert that there will be in all who 
do God's will a perfect agreement respecting every item 
of the so-called evangelical creed, for the systematic 
classification of Christ's teachings as unfolded by his 



KNOWING BY OBEYING. 291 

apostles, and their formulation in a creed, is the work 
of fallible human intellects in which there will always 
be room for differences of opinion and belief; yet the 
spiritual transformation which follows obedient faith 
enables men to see, eye to eye, all cardinal truths. The" 
anointing that abideth and teacheth removes many in- 
tellectual difficulties, and magnifies all vital truths, 
such as the supreme Divinity of the Son of God and of 
the Personal Paraclete. There may be intellectual 
mysteries respecting these Persons, but to the con- 
sciousness they will be realities incomprehensible and 
generally indistinguishable. He who has had difficul- 
ties with the doctrine of Christ's Godhood will -see a 
new and unanswerable argument in the fact that faith 
in him has created the soul anew. He can no longer 
doubt that he was its original Creator. 

Sin, the essence of which is the neglect and rejection 
of Christ by unbelief, will now be seen in its enormity ; 
also the unspeakable baseness of ingratitude toward 
such a Benefactor and Savior, and the fitness of the 
ultimate woful destiny of all who persist in thwarting 
his efforts to " bless them by turning them away from 
their iniquities." It is a very significant fact that just 
in proportion to the decline of a church in spirituality 
by the admission of members who have never bowed 
their wills to God in the new birth, will be the amount 
of skepticism and agnosticism. Where the converting 
power has long been absent from a people, they become 
at last unable to call Jesus Lord. But when such 
persons make a complete surrender of their wills to 
God, their spiritual intuitions are so clarified that ortho- 
doxy naturally follows. We need not cross the oceans 



292 JESUS EXULTANT. 

and the centuries to find instances of spiritual decline 
followed by doctrinal decay. It is only one hundred 
and fifty years since Whitefield preached throughout 
America as a burning seraph just come from the pres- 
ence of God, with his ardor in no degree dampened by 
the chill of unbelief. Many churches welcomed this 
great evangelist and heeded his messages of warning. 
These churches hold fast orthodoxy to-day. But those 
churches which were so spiritually dead as to shut their 
doors against him, have long since abandoned the doc- 
trines of their Puritan ancestry, the faith once delivered 
to the saints, and have ceased to call Jesus Lord. It 
has been said that orthodoxy can be conserved only by 
spirituality. The heart is the keeper of the head. 

This suggests the most effective method of restoring 
the agnostic, the pantheist and the skeptic to the true 
faith. First show in your own transfigured character 
that regeneration by the Holy Spirit is a reality giving 
victory over the world and over sin, which their false 
philosophy signally fails to do. Secondly, induce them 
to practice the little truth to which they still cling. If 
their God is only a power which inclines to righteous- 
ness it affords some obligation to revere, and to worship. 
This implies prayer and praise and an earnest study of 
nature, history, and the records of that modern form of 
religion which has adorned individuals with the highest 
excellencies, and has given its national possessors the 
political domination of the world. This will bring them 
to the study of their dusty Bibles and to a clear knowl- 
edge of God's will. If they submit to his law just as 
perfectly as it is revealed to them they will be led step 
by step to Christ, the truth and the life. A heated 



KNOWING BY OBEYING. 293 

theological debate with them will not bring them to 
Christ. It may be an exciting kind of intellectual ath- 
letics, a brilliant sword practice, but it will not bring 
them to a penitent reception of salvation through faith 
in the atonement. The old couplet is true — 

Convince a man against his will, 
He has the same opinion still. 

What skeptics need is the warm atmosphere of un- 
feigned Christian love to thaw their hearts chilled by 
willful unbelief. How true is our text in the case of 
good people who are in doubt about the possibility of a 
complete extinction of the inherited propensity to sin. 
The sincere inquirer may easily put the doctrine to the 
test. I have a vivid recollection of an eloquent passage 
in one of Joseph Cook's lectures in which he calls upon 
the intellectual doubter to be scientific in his treatment 
of the Gospel by putting it to the test of an actual per- 
sonal experiment. He challenged his hearers to fulfill 
the conditions of certainty and see what will be the re- 
sult. Said he, " I assert that it is a fixed natural law 
that when you yield yourself utterly to God, he streams 
through and through your whole being, soul and body, 
giving you a new sense of his existence, and imparting 
a strength and a joy unknown before." Will you try 
self -surrender, submitting your will to God's will and 
continue in this attitude till heaven's fire descends on 
all your public and private altars ? I have never known 
one to fail who perseveringly tried this experiment. 

In conclusion we would say that we have specially 
accentuated the will of man because it is the only crea- 
tor of character and destiny. For man is a creator of 



294 JESUS EXULTANT. 

character. That is all that we shall ever be able to 
create in this world. We may amass money, build 
houses, ships, railroads, and cities, but we are only put- 
ting matter into new combinations ; we create nothing 
but character, a fountain of joy or of sorrow evermore. 
In this particular man is like God. The moral attri- 
butes of both rest upon will, free will. 

" Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." 



THE GREATER WORKS OF BELIEVERS. 295 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE GEEATEE WOEKS OF BELLEVEES. 

The question is often asked, What are " the greater 
works " which believers in Christ shall do ? This mar- 
velous promise is found in his consolatory address a 
few days before his death. The chief topic of encour- 
agement, comfort, and hope is the Paraclete whom the 
risen Lord will bestow. His works will be more won- 
derful than the physical miracles of Jesus Christ. This 
is declared in John xiv. 12-17. I quote Dr. Campbell's 
version, which is remarkable chiefly for its punctuation. 
It must be borne in mind that there is no punctuation 
in the original. "Verily, verily, I say unto you" — a 
formula " in which the Son of God speaks out of his 
coequality with the Father" (Stier) — "He who be- 
lieveth on me, shall himself do such works as I do ; nay, 
even greater than these shall he do ; because I go to my 
Father, and will do whatsoever ye shall ask in my name. 
That the Father may be glorified in the Son, whatso- 
ever ye shall ask in my name, I will do." It is worthy 
of note that this doing greater works, this survival of the 
supernatural from age to age, is not the exclusive pre- 
rogative of the apostles, but it belongs to everyone, 
however humble, who believes on Christ. Again, our 
greater works are done by the glorified Jesus on the 
throne above in response to our faith. In the same 
breath he declares that he will do the greater works 



296 JESUS EXULTANT. 

which we shall do. This paradox he explains in his 
next utterance : " If ye love me, keep my command- 
ments ; and I will entreat the Father, and He will give 
you another Monitor to continue with you forever, even 
the Spirit of Truth." This "Helper, Advocate, Para- 
clete," will be the divine Agent sent down from heaven 
to do these greater miracles through believers in Christ. 
This brings us to "the miracles of the Holy Ghost" 
which in the Old Testament are physical, as when 
Ezekiel says, " The Spirit lifted me up and took me 
away." The same manifestation of supernatural physi- 
cal power by the Holy Ghost was experienced by Philip : 
" The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the 
eunuch saw him no more." But the promise under dis- 
cussion does not relate to miracles in the realm of mat- 
ter, but rather to those in the province of mind, in the 
re-creation of the human soul, called figuratively birth 
from above, or the new birth, the resurrection of a dead 
soul, the new creation. This spiritual miracle is greater 
than any physical miracle wrought by Christ before he 
burst asunder the gates of death by his inherent power 
to take again the life which he had laid down, for the 
following reasons : — 

1. Physical miracles were temporal in their effects. 
Those raised from sickness died of disease in a few 
years. The multitudes fed by miracle hungered again 
in a few hours. The eyes into which Jesus by a word 
let in the light were soon darkened again by the shad- 
ows of the tomb. The tongue of the dumb loosened by 
the Son of Man was soon silenced by the touch of death. 
But miracles wrought in the transfiguration of the soul 
are enduring unto eternal life. "He that believeth on 



THE GREATER WORKS OF BELIEVERS. 297 

the Son hath eternal life " within the grasp of his free 
agency. Jesus healed the body for time, the Spirit 
heals the soul for eternity. "A healed leper may ap- 
pear to be a greater miracle than a renewed soul, but in 
reality, in comparison, he is hardly a miracle at all! " 
(Joseph Parker.) 

2. The results of spiritual miracles are far more 
valuable. Mind is far superior to matter. Hence " to 
minister to a mind diseased and pluck from the memory 
a rooted sorrow" is an achievement in a higher realm 
and of immensely greater value. For this reason Christ 
himself did not place a primary emphasis on physical 
wonders as his credentials, and they are scarcely so 
much as referred to in the apostolic writings. Peter, 
who had seen them all, mentions them only once, and 
then only to Christ's murderers in Jerusalem, who were 
incapable of appreciating any higher proof of his Mes- 
siahship : " Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God 
among you by miracles and wonders and signs." St. 
Paul magnifies those spiritual marvels which God 
wrought by the Holy Spirit in the regeneration and 
sanctification of souls. In his estimation " the shining 
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the 
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," was a greater 
act than the Fiat Lux which illumined the first day of 
creation (2 Cor. iv. 6). 

3. To transform a spirit from death to life, from sin 
to holiness, requires a higher power than any change 
wrought in matter. Spirit is a self-determining person- 
ality which may successfully withstand omnipotence, or 
rather physical omnipotence is inapplicable to the pro- 
duction of spiritual effects. Sin cannot be crushed out 



298 JESUS EXULTANT. 

of a soul with an almighty trip hammer. God can 
transform inert matter as he may will, but he is power- 
less to regenerate a stubborn human will; but in the 
presence of a consenting will he displays to the aston- 
ished universe " the exceeding greatness of his power to 
us-ward who believe." Hence the age of the most 
notable miracles is now in the very zenith of its glory. 
They are visible in every land where the Gospel is 
preached in faith. Boston has just witnessed the trans- 
formation of a burglar and drunkard into a missionary 
on the Congo. Recovered from the slums and con- 
verted in the Kneeland Street Rescue Mission, he imme- 
diately wrote to the Governor of Maryland, the scene 
of his crimes, offering at his request to appear in court, 
testify against himself, and be sentenced to the peniten- 
tiary. In the absence of such a request he volunteered 
to go to a deadly clime to preach Christ mighty to save. 
" When the proud Brahman has received the truth as it 
is in Jesus, and extended the right hand of Christian 
fellowship to the meanest member of the lowest caste 
whom he has met at the Lord's Supper, a greater mira- 
cle has been wrought than in the healing of the lame or 
the raising of the dead." To put God's law "in the 
inward parts " of a tribe of thieves in India, as the 
Holy Spirit has done through Bishop J. M. Thoburn, 
transforming them into sons of God, " is more than to 
fill the firmament with stars." "Instead of the thorn 
shall come up the fir-tree, . . . and it shall be unto Je- 
hovah for an everlasting miracle that shall not be cut 
off." Spiritual miracles, in the regeneration of de- 
praved and wicked men, are the standing proof of the 
divinity o f the Holy Spirit. Regeneration, crowned 



THE GREATER WORKS OF BELIEVERS. 299 

with the entire sanctification of a soul once dead in sin, 
loving what God hates and hating what God loves, is 
the supreme miracle of the Holy Ghost vividly por- 
trayed by Paul : " Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, ef- 
feminate [catamites], nor abusers of themselves with 
mankind [sodomites], nor thieves [robbers, Conybeare 
& Howson], nor covetous [wantons, C. & H.], nor 
drunkards, nor revilers, shall inherit the kingdom of 
God" (1 Cor. vi. 9, 10). What a rogues' gallery is 
this ! as vile a gang of criminals as ever broke jail. 
What can the Holy Spirit do with these but to abandon 
them forever? But, hold ! let us read further : "And 
such were some of you ; but ye washed yourselves (Rev. 
Ver., margin), but ye were sanctified, but ye were justi- 
fied in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the 
Spirit of our God." The Paraclete has transformed 
them all into a company of saints, bearing the image of 
Christ, and candidates for promotion to thrones beside 
the archangels. Bad men have been transformed into 
good men standing in the same shoes. 

The presence of the supernatural is demanded for the 
introduction of animal life in our world which was once 
a molten globe rolling through the heavens. No pro- 
cesses of the laws of nature can bridge the gulf between 
dead matter and life. Life cannot be evolved from 
non-living matter. The contrary was once asserted by 
third rate philosophers who had a machine for grinding 
out animalculae. But when the machine was tested 
by the exclusion of atmospheric air, it failed utterly. 
This proved that instead of creating animal life it 
simply gathered the living germs floating in the air. 

The evolutionists must admit the supernatural origin 



300 JESUS EXULTANT. 

of the human Spirit with its reflective self-conscious- 
ness, its sense of right and wrong, and its capacity 
to commune with God. The human spirit was never 
evolved from matter. It is supernatural. The whole 
career of Jesus Christ, his words and his works, were 
on the lofty table-land of supernaturalism. What man 
outside of a lunatic asylum ever talked of what occurred 
in his personal history before the foundation of the world. 
Hear him pray, " Holy Father, glorify me with the glory 
which I had with Thee before the world was." A thread 
of consciousness running back in memory beyond the 
beginning of time into the past eternities. 

That other most marvelous word was uttered while 
standing on a globe ridged with graves from ocean to 
ocean and from pole to pole, " I am the resurrection and 
the life." What were his works but miracles, suspen- 
sions of natural laws, ending in that crowning miracle of 
his resurrection from the dead ? It is vain to attempt 
to show that this stupendous miracle came about as the 
result of natural forces. This confounds the evolution- 
ists who assert that every event is the effect of a 
natural cause. 

Pentecost demands a cause transcending Nature, a 
personal cause, the only real cause in the universe, a 
cause which permanently abides in the Church, which 
is a company of spiritual men and women, who, while 
in the world, are not of the world. They are through 
faith supernaturally held above the currents of impurity 
and sin which sweep over the world ; held by an invisi- 
ble Person, the Lord and Giver of life, the Holy Spirit. 
I should have said they were first supernaturally plucked 
from the rapids of depravity as they dashed onward 



THE GREATER WORKS OF BELIEVERS. 301 

towards the Niagara of perdition. Christianity is the 
supernatural bridge on which the personal Holy Spirit 
stands and reaches down his strong right hand to rescue 
all who will lay hold on Christ for salvation. He saves 
only through the Spirit's threefold office of conviction, 
the new birth, and sanctiflcation. Romanism shuts up 
this supernatural and Divine Agent in the age of the 
Apostles; ritualism limits him to the Sacraments in the 
hands of priests in the mythical apostolic succession. 
But those forms of Protestantism which have spiritual 
life, believe in the immediate, free, and direct action of 
the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven accompanying 
Gospel truth, the whole scheme of saving verities pro- 
claimed in faith. I have now uncovered the secret of 
the Wesleyan reformation in an age of formalism and 
spiritual death. The vital element is the direct contact 
of the Divine Spirit with the human Spirit along the 
electric wire of evangelical truth faithfully preached. 
This accounts for the permanent change suddenly 
wrought in thousands of vicious men and women, who, 
if left to their evil hearts, would have subverted the 
British throne and the Church of England by a revolu- 
tion worse than that which precipitated the reign of 
terror in France in 1793. 

Says Canon Farrar of John Wesley, " He distinctly 
saved the Church of England from the nemesis of just 
retribution, which but for him would sooner or later 
have overwhelmed her in indiscriminate collapse, and 
might not improbably have buried under her heaps of 
ruin all that was best in the great heritage of English 
religion." The historian Lecky before Canon Farrar 
said the same thing in his History of England, But 



302 JESUS EXULTANT. 

John Wesley without the Holy Spirit is, in modern 
terms, an electric motor without a current of electricity. 
His shoulder beneath the submerged masses of England 
would have been powerless to lift them into intelligent 
and law-abiding citizens if the supernatural had not 
dwelt in him in the person of the Holy Ghost. Read 
his Journal and his Sermons and you will find this is 
the open secret of .his amazing activity, undaunted cour- 
age, and marvelous success. 

A. few weeks ago Dr. C. H. Parkhurst, under God the 
conqueror of Tammany, the bottomless pit of New York 
politics, uttered these words in a searching and mighty 
sermon on Acts xix. 2, " Did ye receive the Holy Spirit 
when ye believed?" Listen to these. words which un- 
cover the secret of power in this remarkable man : " It 
takes Christ as a law and the Holy Ghost as a passion 
both to make of a man a completed Christian. We must 
learn to realize that in this matter of the Holy Spirit we 
are dealing with an essential. No matter how perfect a 
half Christian a man may be, you have not secured 
Christian-hood till you have put on the other half along 
with it. There is matter here to be thought upon. It 
concerns us as Christian men and women, and it con- 
cerns us in our collective character as a Christian church. 
There were no completed Christians till Pentecost, and 
there can be no completed Christians with the" cessation 
of Pentecost. There was no church till Pentecost, and 
a church without a Holy Spirit* is as much a. delusion as 
a church without a Christ. ... In its detached pas- 
sages and in its collectible drift the New Testament story 
means that to be a believer is not a finality but a pre- 
liminary, and that it is simply a condition which puts 



THE GREATER WORKS OF BELIEVERS. 303 

us within reach of the waiting possibilities of finished 
Chris tianhood. We dare never to forget that though 
the disciples were thoroughly converted to Jesus Christ 
at the time he withdrew from them, that yet they re- 
mained in a condition of organized helplessness till the 
work of Jesus had been supplemented by the work of 
the Spirit." These are not the words of John Wesley 
in his Plain Account of Christian Perfection, but they 
teach the same doctrine. The Presbyterian urges his 
hearers to become "completed Christians through the 
fullness of the Spirit, and the Methodist exhorts be- 
lievers to become perfect Christians by the incoming 
and indwelling of the Sanctifier. Both mean the same 
thing. I cannot forbear to give you another quota- 
tion from this sermon printed in Times of Refreshing for 
August, 1896 : " Now, Christian believers, I want to ask 
you whether you lay upon the office- work of the Holy 
Spirit the emphasis that the Bible does ; whether there 
is not in your mind a lurking idea that the Holy Spirit 
is a good deal more an ornament than it is a utility ; 
whether there is not within you a conviction that the 
church is, comparatively speaking, a powerless organ- 
ization because we are skipping one necessary link of 
redemptive energies, and that our particular communion 
is comparatively in a condition of abject debility, ab- 
sorbed in trivialities, relying upon pitiable and poverty- 
stricken devices, for the reason that its belief is not an 
in-Spirited belief, its activity a divinely compelled 
activity, and for the reason that its manipulated dust 
and its shapely members are not having breathed into 
them the breath of life." 

It is quite evident that Methodism has the same weak- 



304 JESUS EXULTANT. 

ness, increased by our reliance on our millions of mem- 
bers, and that in all our churches it should sound out 
from the pulpit, " Not by might (Heb., an army), nor 
by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord of hosts." 
^^The more we sacrifice to the dragnet of the probation- 
ers' list, and burn incense to the general minutes and 
educational statistics, the more impotent we shall be- 
;ome. We are dying of naturalism. Only the super- 
natural will save us. We need a demonstration of its 
presence, in Pentecost repeated, in the downpour of the 
Holy Ghost, a tongue of fire in eveiy mouth proclaim- 
ing "the big realities of our holy Christian faith." We 
have hinted that the chief of these is in transforming 
a sinner into a saint through the power of the Holy 
Spirit. But he has his divinely appointed limitations, 
He works this amazing miracle only within the sphere 
of the truth. This is his instrument, " the sword of 
the Spirit is the word of God." Hence the close con- 
nection between preaching the unadulterated Gospel 
and the conversion of sinners. 

If our lecture rests upon any one assumption it is 
that man is a spirit capable of conscious contact with 
the great Spirit ; that he has a religious nature, a capa- 
city for receiving God ; that man's rational being is sur- 
mounted by a crystal dome through which there streams 
down into the depths of his being supernatural light, 
above the brightness of the sun, convicting of sin, and, 
to the penitent believer, revealing the personal Savior 
Jesus Christ, and transforming him into his image, mak- 
ing him a partaker of the divine nature through the 
new birth of the Holy Ghost. This is the everlasting 
sign of Isaiah present wherever the regenerating power 



THE GREATER WORKS OF BELIEVERS. 305 

is felt in a human heart. " Instead of the thorn shall 
come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar come up 
the myrtle-tree, instead of a bad man, through the 
supernatural transfiguration of the Holy Spirit, a good 
man shall be found; instead of the drunkard, a sober 
man; instead of the thief, an honest man; instead of 
the profane man, a praying man. And it shall be to 
the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall 
not be cut off." * This is the standing miracle attend- 
ing every true church, the converting power, the seal 
of God on both the ministry and the people who have 
faith in the Holy Spirit sufficient to secure his abiding 
presence. This change of nature from sin to holiness 
in the twinkling of an eye is the work which Christ 
had in mind when he said, " Greater works than these 
shall ye do." What can be greater than raising to life 
a dead man with a word ? Greater is it to raise a dead 
soul than a dead body ; for the body has no power to 
resist and thwart the life-giving word, while the soul 
dead in sin may eternally resist spiritual resurrection. 
On the first day of the week after Christ was crucified 
was wrought a greater miracle by him than was ever 
before seen in this or any other world. The resurrec- 
tion was Christ's own work. " I have power to lay 
down my life and I have power to take it again." Yet 
this act was included among those works which believ- 
ers were to exceed. Lest any one may object that this 
is putting the servant above his Lord, the creature 
above the Creator, we have shown by Dr. Campbell's 
punctuation that the greater works of believers are in 
reality wrought by the risen and glorified Redeemer. 

* Isaiah ly. 13. 



306 JESUS EXULTANT. 

Supernaturalism in Christian experience is one of the 
chief proofs of the divinity of Christianity. Dr. Park- 
hurst's sermon from the beginning to the end implies 
that in the common experience of believers this super- 
naturalism does not come into consciousness with the 
first inspiration of spiritual life. This is almost univer- 
sally true of converted children. They are for a period 
half Christians. Then if properly instructed in respect 
to their privileges some seek, till by the baptism of the 
permanent fullness of the Holy Spirit, they become com- 
pleted Christians. Others remain incomplete all their 
lives. We all pity dwarfs in physical stature. God 
and adult believers commiserate the spiritual dwarf, 
and desire his full development into the measure of the 
stature of the fullness of Christ, — explained by Meyer, 
the great exegete, as that stage of progress " in which 
one receives the fullness of Christ. Before one has at- 
tained," says he, u to this degree of Christian perfection," 
— the very phrase of J. Wesley, — " one has received, 
indeed, individual and partial charismatic endowments 
from Christ, but not yet the fullness, the whole largas 
copias of gifts of grace which Christ communicates." 
Thus there is perfect harmony between the German an- 
notator, the Wesleyan Founder, and the Presbyterian 
preacher above quoted. It is proper for the speaker to 
add his concurrent testimony on this 17th day of No- 
vember, the twenty-eighth anniversary of that religious 
crisis which made him a " completed Christian." 

The incoming of the Paraclete into his heart while 
sitting in the President's room in Genesee College was 
the most memorable event of his life. "I have come 
to stay forever " expresses the first impression made by 



THE GREATER WORKS OF BELIEVERS. 307 

the Comforter when he entered the longing heart. 
Twenty-eight years are not forever, but they are a suf- 
ficient assurance that Christ, who is the same yesterday, 
to-day, and forever, will not withdraw the great gift of 
the divine Comforter from the soul that ever fulfills the 
conditions of his indwelling. The experience of that 
day in 1870 revolutionized your speaker's whole inner 
being. It gave him an evangel to the church which for 
more than a quarter of a century he has endeavored with 
tongue and pen to proclaim without regard to the ques- 
tion of worldly loss or gain to himself. He is pledged 
before high heaven to keep the trumpet of full salvation 
to his lips so long as God permits him to breathe the 
vital air. When Dr. Olin died, he said to Bishop Janes, 
"I feel the old foundations under me." I expect to die 
with the old doctrinal foundations of conscious Pen- 
tecostal salvation under me. Let these few words be 
my twenty-eighth milestone. 

In conclusion we raise the question to every pro- 
fessor of saving faith in Jesus Christ, whether the 
greater works promised by him are wrought through 
your instrumentality, your holy living, your victorious 
faith, your prevailing prayers. Do not evade this legit- 
imate question, but manfully consider it, and candidly 
answer it in the fear of God with your hand on your 
own headstone and your eye on the day of Judgment. 
Has the promised Paraclete taken up his permanent 
abode in your consciousness ? Has he wrought in you 
changes which awaken your astonishment? Has he 
extinguished the carnal mind, nailed to his cross pride, 
envy, and all unholy tempers ? Has the Spirit cast out 
love of the world and all cravings for its riches and 



308 JESUS EXULTANT. 

honors? Can you truthfully, with Paul, proclaim the 
double crucifixion, " I am crucified to the world and the 
world is crucified unto me " ? 

In the second place is there anything marvelous about 
the saving effect of your individual life in its transform- 
ing influence on the unsaved souls immediately about 
you, under the shadow of your influence? Do your 
children see the truth of the Gospel in your saintliness, 
in your deadness to the world, in your love for souls, 
and in your zeal for their salvation? Our Divine 
Savior by a striking metaphor declares that you are the 
light of the world, but he intimates the possibility of 
the light in you becoming great darkness. If you are 
lighting the pathway of no soul to Christ, is it not a 
legitimate inference that your torch has gone out? 
He calls you the salt of the earth. If everybody about 
you is waxing corrupt through sin, if corruption riots 
unchecked under the shadow of your home and business 
life, is it not fair to infer that you as an individual lump 
of salt have lost your savor and are in danger of being 
trodden under men's feet, as so much gravel for the 
sidewalks, instead of being an antiseptic power puri- 
fying your environment? 



WHAT IS MAN? 309 



CHAPTER XVII. 

WHAT IS MAN?* 

We invite yon to-day, beloved hearers, to range with 
ns through all the philosophies in quest of a correct 
foot-rule with which to measure man, and determine his 
rank in the universe. He must be an enigma to him- 
self till his true measure is found and his relative rank 
is ascertained. For the same reason all social and edu- 
cational systems must be erroneous, and all ethical pre- 
cepts must be defective, so long as man's true position 
in the scale of being is unknown. Hence Revelation 
is as much needed to disclose man to himself as it is to 
reveal God. 

The most obtrusive, clamorous, and superficial phi- 
losophy is what is called by Carlyle " Dirt Philosophy." 
This baneful system is widely prevalent in modern 
times, especially in America. It degrades and dis- 
crowns man. The fact that his nature is composed of 
the same kinds of matter as the brute creations tends 
to lead man to a low estimate of his rank in the uni- 
verse, and to a denial that he is destined to a possible 
superiority to the archangels before God's throne. De- 
pressing indeed is the doctrine of the materialistic evo- 
lution of animals and men from the same original cell 
or protoplasm, man being in his anatomy classified as 

* " When I consider thy heavens . . . what is man?" Psalms viii. 3, 4, 



310 JESUS EXULTANT. 

a vertebrate animal, of the sub-class mammals, of the 
division bimanus, and of the species homo. 

Now, because man's body fits into this series of ani- 
mals, the inference is that he is only an animal which 
has stepped a little ahead of his less fortunate brethren, 
that he is of no more importance than they, and that 
at death he sinks with them into the nothingness from 
which he sprang. This conclusion is strengthened by 
the fact of man's physical inferiority to many orders of 
animals in certain qualities. The ox is stronger, the 
deer is more fleet, the eagle has a more piercing eye, 
and the hound a keener scent, while nearly all the 
brutes can endure greater hunger and thirst, heat and 
cold. The babe is the most helpless of all the young 
animals. Man sickens and dies after a few years, and, 
with the inferior orders, turns to dust. In such mate- 
rialistic researches we fail to find any clue to man's 
true greatness. We are still more perplexed and de- 
pressed in our estimate of humanity when we consider 
the actual condition of our race as a whole, their brutish 
lives and groveling aspirations, ambitious only — 

" To devour the cattle, fowl, and fish, 
And leave behind an empty dish." 

The savage condition of vast masses of men in pagan- 
ism, the squalor, rags, gluttony, drunkenness, licentious- 
ness, and all conceivable moral leprosies, which blot 
the highest civilizations to which men have yet attained, 
eclipse the glory of man from the materialist's point of 
view. 

Stanley found in central Africa a tribe so degraded 
that he said he would give any one a half a dollar to 



WHAT IS MAN? 311 

prove that they were not human. The cheapness of 
human life, and the ignoble uses to which despotisms, 
wars, and slavery have put man, making him, all along 
the ages, a thing, a chattel, a gory stepping-stone to a 
throne, bewilder us and falsify any high estimate of his 
dignity, worth, and destiny. The false standards which 
society sets up burning incense to successful villainy 
and scorning humble virtue, complete the illusion. 

Philosophical Materialism has its origin on this wise. 
In the study of the varieties in nature there is in all 
minds need of classification, grouping individuals into 
species, and species into genera. Thus the apparent 
chaos of nature is reduced to order, and science which 
is classified knowledge emerges. The tendency is very 
strong to carry this process of classification up to unity. 
This is Plato's definition of philosophy — "the reduc- 
tion of the many to one." What is this one thing? 
The answer to this question determines the character of 
the different philosophies. If you say with Anaxagoras 
that mind is the origin of all things, your system is a 
spiritual, theistic philosophy. But if you say that mat- 
ter is the first principle of the universe you become an 
atheistic materialist, denying the substantive existence 
of spirit or mind, and make it an attribute of matter. 
The foremost modern champion of this philosophy was 
Tyndall. Hear his confession of faith not in Christ, but 
in matter as the impersonal source of all beings, " Aban- 
doning all disguise, the confession that I feel bound to 
make before you (a scientific association) is that I pro- 
long the vision backward across the boundary of the 
experimental evidence, and discern in that Matter (prop- 
erly capitalized), which we in our ignorance, and not- 



312 JESUS EXULTANT. 

withstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, 
have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and 
potency of every form and quality of life." This is the 
seed of the theory of materialistic evolution which we 
will examine to find whether it exalts or dwarfs man. 
This theory of which the nebular hypothesis of La Place 
— though not necessarily atheistic — is a part, when 
pushed to its logical outcome, introduces man on the 
earth by the invariable necessity of physical law with no 
direct action of a creator. All the assumption with which 
this theory sets out is the existence of a mass of attenu- 
ated fire-vapor or star-dust possessed of all the properties 
of matter with the addition of self-motion. Now without 
the interposition of any external agency or force, this 
Matter alone, "containing the promise and potency of 
every form and quality of life," under the reign of law, 
will unerringly develop suns, planets, satellites, vege- 
tables, and animals in geologic succession ; and at last it 
will grind out man with all his intellectual, moral, and 
spiritual furniture and all his history, Alexander and all 
his conquests, Demosthenes and all his orations, Plato 
and all his dialogues, Shakespeare and all his dramas, 
and Jesus and all his parables and miracles. Does this 
astonish you ? Still greater surprises await you. The 
half that this impersonal magician, law, can blindly do 
without intelligence and design has not yet been told. 
A personal God presiding over creation moves forward 
in a straight line, not being compelled by necessity to 
repeat himself, always having power to make new or- 
ders of beings, and to cause new events in history. 
But natural law, with no personal lawgiver behind it, 
moves forever in a circle repeating the same effects 



WHAT IS MAN? 313 

since there is no variation in the impersonal cause. 
Hence man and all his sinful and sorrowful history, the 
same race, and the same individuals, will come into 
existence again and again, forever under the reign of 
inflexible law. After the lapse of some vast cycle of 
millions of years, perhaps, Adam and Eve will well 
appear again in Paradise, be befooled again by the ly- 
ing serpent, eat the forbidden fruit, and hand in hand 
with lingering steps and slow through Eden's gate take 
their solitary way into a world of toil and trouble. The 
scenes of murdered Abel, of Noah and the Flood, Moses 
and the Decalogue, of Joshua commanding the sun, and 
of the Roman army destroying the temple in Jerusalem, 
will reappear at intervals followed by all the villainies, 
tyrannies, butcheries, and leprosies recorded in history, 
the same Herod executing his own sons, the same Nero 
murdering his mother and standing on the neck of the 
world, the same Judas betraying the same Jesus, and 
the same Pilate nailing to the cross the King of the 
Jews. All this is because without intelligence and de- 
sign an automatic machine is always blindly grinding 
out uniform products like coin from the mint. Evolu- 
tion of the atheistic sort will eternally accomplish in- 
variable effects, since there is no personal intelligence 
to throw the band off the wheel and stop the machine. 
According to materialism thought and feeling are ex- 
cited by a little shaking of the brain, producing vibra- 
tions in the whitish half -fluid substance. Hence, sooner 
or later, perhaps to-morrow or millions of ages hence, 
under the reign of uniform and invariable law, you will 
all be present to hear him who is now addressing you. 
He will speak on the same theme, without any improve- 



314 JESITS EXULTANT. 

merit in his style because like causes produce like 
effects. Says Hartley, " Precisely the same thought 
and feeling will exist wherever a similar motion can be 
excited in a similar substance." So you see that I am 
bound to appear again and again on the same platform 
as often as the great wheel of this material universe 
comes round to a certain point and jogs my brain in the 
same way, and you, for the same reason, are bound to 
accompany me again on the same ramble through the 
philosophies in search of a correct mirror in which to 
get a full length view of man. But according to the 
same philosophy I have already been here a thousand 
times in the vast revolutions of former ages, for like 
causes have been producing like effects through the 
illimitable aeons of the past. 

But what kind of a being is it that goes into the hop- 
per of the mill of inexorable law in the form of fire-mist 
and drops from the other end of the machine a finished 
man? Has he the godlike attribute of freedom? Has 
he an ethical nature ? Can he spontaneously choose his 
moral acts ? Is he a cause uncaused in the creation of 
moral character? Herbert Spencer shall answer: "I 
take it to be demonstrable that it is utterly impossible 
to prove that anj^thing whatever may not be the effect 
of a material and necessary cause, and that human logic 
is utterly incompetent to prove that any act is really 
spontaneous. Such an act is absurd. The progress of 
Science will gradually banish from all regions of human 
thought what we call spirit and spontaneity." Here we 
have what we might naturally expect from this atheistic 
philosophy, machines the product of machinery, and not 
free moral agents the crowning work of an intelligent 



WHAT IS MAN? 315 

Creator. You cannot get from this mill of iron law a 
personal, free, responsible moral agent. The outcome 
of the Spencerian philosophy, the deification of law, is 
the degradation of man from being a cause uncaused in 
his moral acts to a simple cog in a wheel acting only as 
it is acted upon. What is the value of such a product 
of sovereign law ? Like all the products of machinery 
man is a very cheap fabric, a mere incident in the 
course of unintelligent, designless nature as she rolls 
round her ceaseless orbit to attain her unknown and 
unknowable end. Therefore, if we turn to natural 
science to find a foot-rule to measure the altitude of 
man we will surely meet with a sore disappointment. 
The magnitude of the material universe dwarfs and 
depresses him by the contrast. We live in an age of 
amazing discoveries, enlarging the domain of matter to 
dimensions which stagger thought and baffle imagina- 
tion. By means of our fifty-inch telescopes we are able 
to look through that cluster of universes, of which the 
milky way powdered with suns is the rim, into the 
empty space beyond. The estimated diameter of this 
cluster is from 20,000 to 30,000 " light years" — years 
which it takes light to move at the rate of 180,000 miles 
in a second of time. This gives us some conception 
of the " mileage and tonnage " of one cluster of the 
vast whole of the worlds in infinite space. By the testi- 
mony of the spectroscope to the earthly elements blazing 
in the most distant fixed star feebly glimmering through 
the thousands of " light years," we are impressed with 
the unity of the material universe as well as its un- 
thinkable vastness. Man, who in contrast seems like a 
microbe clinging to that floating speck of dust called 



316 JESUS EXULTANT. 

earth, is correspondingly minified. Modern Science 
overpowers us as we gaze at the old rolling heavens 
through our telescopes and crushes us into nothingness. 
We seem to find our proper place with the insects and 
animalcules in the dust beneath our feet. Even in an- 
cient times, before human vision was aided by the tele- 
scope invented by Galileo, the thoughtful spectator of 
the starry dome above us was humbled at the thought 
of his own insignificance, and turned away from the 
sublime yet depressing vision exclaiming, " What is 
man that thou art mindful of him? " But the ancients 
in regarding the earth as the immovable center of the 
universe looked upon the heavens merely as the be- 
spangled drapery of his couch, both earth and sky min- 
istering solely to the happiness of man. Hence the 
celestial magnificence was in truth only a reflection of 
his greatness. We need travel backward only ten or 
twelve generations to find ancestors who gazed upon 
the heavens as an immense hollow solid, or ^rmament, 
a vast crystalline sphere revolving daily over their heads 
— all the fixed stars being firmly imbedded in that 
glassy vault — as passengers in a coach look up to the 
brass nails in the canopy. All this magnificence awak- 
ened in the bosoms of our ancestors emotions of sublim- 
ity, but it did not overwhelm them with a sense of their 
nothingness. It rather exalted them as God's favorite 
children u for whom all nature stands, and stars their 
courses move." For not only did the sun and moon 
and planets with a real translation travel daily over 
their roofs for their well-being, but the fixed stars im- 
bedded in the solid concave sky whirled over their heads 
with an inconceivable velocity every night to please 



WHAT IS MAN? 317 

their eyes and to shed their mystic influence upon man- 
kind. All this is now changed by the disclosures of 
Science. We can no longer natter ourselves that we 
are the only intelligent citizens of this vast material 
domain, and that for us all this magnificence exists. 
We have found out that the earth is a sand-grain whirl- 
ing through the heavens. The millions of suns, centers 
of systems of worlds unveiled to our wondering eyes, in 
the nebulae which cloud the nightly sky, suggesting the 
existence of countless orders of moral intelligences, 
thronging these heavenly spheres and sharing the love 
of their Creator against whom possibly none of them 
have ever rebelled, take us down from the pedestal of a 
monopoly of the Divine regards, and seemingly degrade 
us to the rank of the emmets which toil for one poor 
grain. Again the inference from Geology of innumera- 
ble aeons of time through which our earth has passed, 
while race after race of animals have nourished and 
become extinct, leaving their bones as so many letters 
on the stony page, depresses us with the thought of our 
own ephemeral life, and awakens the suspicion that 
mankind must disappear, and be succeeded by some su- 
perior beings who will dig up the fossil homo, and specu- 
late on his habits and history as we gravely theorize on 
the bird or animal which has left its tracks in the 
Connecticut red sandstone. 

Nor do we find the desired proof of man's greatness 
in that new phase of material philosophy called Positiv- 
ism. This is a systematic assault on man's true nobility, 
since it involves an open denial of his spiritual nature, 
his immortality, and the possibility of a supersensual 
philosophy. It destroys human freedom, annihilates 



318 JESUS EXULTANT. 

conscience, and the atonement for human sin, regenera- 
tion by the Holy Spirit, the day of Judgment with its 
eternal sentences, as the exploded errors of an outgrown 
era of religious superstition which darkened the child- 
hood of our race. Positivism deals only with physical 
phenomena, discards causation as beyond our faculties, 
and asserts that the universe is a ship with no clearance 
papers, adrift on an uncharted sea, with no pilot but 
fate, no chart but conjecture, and no destined harbor but 
chance. It assumes that only matter exists, and that 
thought is its attribute or product. The purpose of 
man's existence is a mystery too deep for this philosophy 
to fathom. It is busy only with uniform phenomena 
which it calls natural law. It deals with appearances 
and shadows, and ignores or denies realities and sub- 
stances. 

Among philosophers the Positivists are the exact 
antipodes of Plato, who could construct his system only 
on realities, eternal, changeless archetypal ideas, dis- 
carding the ever-changing phenomena of matter which 
is in a perpetual flux. Positivism sneering at Plato's 
spiritual, immutable forms, because they do not address 
the five senses, believes only in what can be weighed 
and measured. Since it finds electricity the most subtle 
manifestation of matter or the most energetic of impon- 
derable agents, the electrometer is its highest test of 
truth. It boasts that it can reduce all there is of man 
to a gas. It looks with proud contempt upon both 
mental philosophy and theology, prates of mankind 
passing through the babyhood of theology or fiction, 
the youth of metaphysical philosophy or abstraction into 
the glorious era of scientific certainty or positivism. Its 



WHAT IS MAN? 319 

object of worship is no invisible being, but collective 
humanity. Every element of man's true greatness, his 
speculative reason, moral freedom, ethical and esthetical 
faculties, spirituality, and immortality, are all cast aside 
as rubbish by this philosophy. Here we search in vain 
for the true measure of man's greatness. He is a bubble 
seen for a moment on the stream of phenomena and 
then totally disappearing forever. 

Before proceeding to our next field of research, we 
wish to set up a safeguard against the erroneous infer- 
ence that we slight and undervalue natural law. We 
believe in the sovereignty of law, but the personal God 
is the sovereign, and law is his uniform mode of work- 
ing. The laws of Nature have been aptly styled " God's 
habits." Dr. Joseph Parker felicitously describes them 
as " God's police force intended to keep fools in their 
places and help honest men do their work in security." 
This is the Christian view of the reign of law, the ex- 
pression of the will of the Divine Lawgiver. But recent 
philosophies would attribute power to law itself, and 
would imprison the impersonal lawgiver in a tomb from 
which there is no possible resurrection to create a world, 
authenticate a revelation by a miracle, to answer prayer, 
to redeem a world, or pardon a penitent. 

We turn now to American Transcendentalism to find 
an infallibly correct measure of man's greatness. This 
philosophy has created a literature filled with the dig- 
nity and worth of man. It is Unitarianism gone to 
seed, a religious cult which speaks charmingly of the 
sacredness, yea, the divineness of humanity. It must 
be therefore that it will exalt a man to the very apex of 
the universe. The long word transcendentalism com- 



320 JESUS EXULTANT. 

prises those truths and principles which transcend the 
senses and the process of logic, and experience, and are 
grasped immediately by intuition as self-evident. In 
addition to this quality, they are also incapable of 
analysis, being simple ; they are also necessary and uni- 
versal. They may be apprehended, but they cannot be 
comprehended. The following are specimens, cause, 
space, time, right, and wrong. You can close your eyes 
and conceive of the non-existence of this building in 
which we are, but you cannot conceive of the non-exist- 
ence of the space it occupies. Up to a certain point we 
are all Transcendentalists ; but we stop before we have 
gone so far as to say that revelation is superfluous, since 
the human mind intuitively grasps all truth necessary 
to its highest well-being, such truths as God, sin, right- 
eousness, and immortality. But its concept of God is 
not that of the personal Jehovah, but that of an imper- 
sonal, nondescript force, styled by Emerson " The over- 
soul." Sin is only an ephemeral aberration, a necessary 
stumbling of an infant taking its first independent steps 
from the cradle to the mother's knee ; a child's disease 
like the mumps, or chicken-pox, or measles, which ma- 
turity will outgrow. Righteousness is doing rightly 
towards our fellowmen. The first command, love to 
God with our whole being, this philosophy ignores. Its 
doctrine of immortality is absorption into the impersonal 
oversoul, as water floating in a bottle in the ocean is 
mingled with the ocean when the bottle is broken. 
This philosophy is really pantheistic. God is con- 
founded with the universe. Spirit is viewed as the 
only substance, and matter is one of its attributes. The 
other form of pantheism is that matter is the only sub- 



WHAT IS MAN ? 321 

stance and spirit is an attribute. Both imprison God in 
the laws of the universe, denying his transcendence. 
The attempt to marry these two forms of pantheism by 
Professor Huxley as the officiating clergyman, using the 
formula, u Matter is a two-faced somewhat having both 
spiritual and material attributes," is a signal failure. 
The parties, matter and spirit, refuse to be pronounced 
one. This philosophy is best represented in its practi- 
cal bearings by Theodore Parker. Its subtle, fascinat- 
ing, and deadly errors are most thoroughly exposed by 
Joseph Cook. It pours its sublimated poison into our 
higher literature under the name of agnosticism. It has 
subsidized some graceful and charming pens. It infects 
some brilliant intellects, inspiring them for the indirect 
overthrow of Christianity by undermining its founda- 
tions. Like the deadly water-gas used in Boston, it 
gives no intimation of its presence in the atmosphere to 
warn its unconscious victims. Glorified by the resplen- 
dence of genius it mounts the pulpit and steals the words 
of Christ's evangel for the disguise of its falsehoods fatal 
to spiritual life. Insidiously it pervades the minds of 
our youths, and prevents the revival and spread of ex- 
perimental and vital godliness in our most ancient seat 
of learning, and the city which has been called the 
Athens of America. 

But what has this to do with our inquiry to-day? 
Does this philosophy magnify man ? It does so appar- 
ently but not really. It represents him as the highest 
personality in the universe. It asserts that God comes 
to consciousness in man, that his intuitions are God's 
utterances, God thinking with his faculties. His acts 
are the actions of Deity also. Hence his moral freedom 



322 JESUS EXULTANT. 

and responsibility are unreal, his character, his virtues, 
and his crimes are illusions. Sin is a good in the process 
of making. Every moral downfall is a step of progress. 
Says the sage of Concord, "Mankind, whether in the 
brothel or on the scaffold, is tending upward." There 
is in this theory no such thing as absolute evil, for we 
are all a part of God, who cannot be at loggerheads with 
Himself. There is no punishment of sin, for God will 
not punish himself. Does such a system magnify man ? 
It degrades him inconceivably. It annihilates his capa- 
city for that independent causality of his own moral acts 
which is the basis of moral character, by regarding him 
as a scrap of God. The philosophy which begins with 
denying the personality of God ends with discrediting 
the personality of man. It saps the very foundations of 
ethics and makes religious worship impossible, unless, 
with Emerson, "we go to our mirrors and with reverent 
bow say good-morning to ourselves." 

The conclusion of our search among the principal 
philosophies is this, that there is no radical error which 
does not degrade man. The systems that discrown God 
by divesting Him of moral attributes, or spirituality, or 
personality, discrown man also, the image of God. 

There is one more system to be examined, which the 
world has not dignified as a philosophy because it has 
not wisdom enough to fathom its depths and discover 
its divine harmonies. It can know its beauties only by 
being assimilated to its spirit. In the Gospel of the 
lowly Nazarene let us search for the adequate measure 
of man. It is a scheme of salvation based upon the 
deepest and highest philosophy. The very fact of a 
Revelation of God to man magnifies him as an object of 



WHAT IS MAN ? 323 

special regard. Does not the peasant to whom the 
Emperor speaks a kindly word, feel that he is ennobled 
by the condescension of his sovereign? Does he ever 
after employ his reasoning powers in constructing 
sophisms to disprove this honor ? Does he mystify and 
stultify himself by magnifying the antecedent improba- 
bilities arising from his own insignificance and the 
greatness of his ruler? Rather does he not sacredly 
treasure up this proof of his sovereign's regard as an 
intimation of his own personal importance? There were 
good grounds for the boast of the Hibernian hod-carrier, 
" The King spake to me to-day." " What did he say ? " 
inquired his friend. " He said, 4 Get out of my way.' " 
There was cause for self-gratulation in even such an 
address to him. For speech implies a correspondence 
of faculties in the person addressed with those of the 
speaker. The Irishman had been treated as a man, not 
as a beast or a post. The King had complimented him 
by assuming that he had faculties responsive to his own. 
We never see a man exercising his ingenuity to disprove 
that the King of kings has spoken to him in the Bible 
without exclaiming, u Here is a man who is deliberately 
attempting to destroy his own patent of nobility." For 
if God has not spoken to man in Revelation, he takes 
rank with the microbes which find infinite sporting-place 
in a drop of stagnant water. 

But if the fact of Revelation dignifies man, the con- 
tents of that Revelation enhance that dignity. On the 
very first page of the Bible is a declaration of man's 
superiority to all other creations. In calling into being 
the vegetable and animal kingdoms the Creator employed 
secondary causes by giving a miraculous fecundity to 



324 JESUS EXULTANT, 

the waters and by fructifying the soil : " Let the waters 
bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath 
life. Let the earth bring forth cattle and creeping 
things." But when man was to be created we have no 
such wholesale production by secondary agencies. Na- 
ture does not supernaturally spawn men, as she did the 
fishes, reptiles, fowls, and beasts. The personal God 
puts forth his hand to the direct creation of man with a 
dignity and deliberation which bespeak the greatness of 
the being to be created, the sacredness of the king about 
to be crowned : " And God said, Let us make man after 
our own image and let them have dominion." The 
value of this fact of man's similarity to God cannot be 
overestimated. It is the hinge on which the important 
practical question hinges, Can man know God and com- 
mune with him ? By the assurance that the mind is 
made in the image of God we are certain they both 
alike have rational powers for the perception of truth, 
for comparison of values, for choosing ends, and for 
planning to attain them. They alike perceive the dis- 
tinction between right and wrong, approve the one and 
condemn the other with the same pleasant or painful 
emotions. Hence benevolence, justice, holiness, and 
truth in man are just the same in the Divine character. 
Hence by knowing the human mind we have the ability 
to recognize the moral attributes of God, when they are 
revealed in the star-light of Nature or in the noon-tide of 
Revelation. As moral character in God implies his free- 
dom as a Cause uncaused of his own acts, so the moral 
constitution of his created fac-simile implies that in re- 
spect to his own moral choices he is a first cause, itself 
not caused by any decree or chain of antecedent causes. 



WHAT IS MAN? 325 

How this enhances man's greatness. He is the crea- 
tor of character, the only thing really valuable in man, 
the only thing that he can carry out of the world, the 
only thing on which eternal happiness is conditioned. 
In these modern times, when pantheism in various forms 
is widely prevalent, the conscious personality of man 
stands as a refutation of this fundamental error. This 
is the logic of this matter : If there is personality in the 
constitution of the creature there must be personality 
in the Creator, unless the effect contains an element not 
existing in the cause. No pantheist can adjust human 
freedom, — a conscious, free, created personality, to his 
fatalistic philosophy. Says Dr. Samuel Johnson, "I 
know that I am free, and that is the end of it." It is 
the end also of the theory which makes me a fragment 
of God, determines my moral acts not by my own free 
will, but by a blind irresistible force moving me to 
action. The only alternative for the pantheist is the 
assertion that "we are created capable of intelligence 
in order to be made the victims of delusion ; that God 
is a deceiver, and that the root of our nature is a lie." 
— Sir William Hamilton. 

The greatness of man is seen in his endowment with 
a moral sense which grasps and holds fast the principles 
underlying immutable morality, principles held in com- 
mon by both Creator and creature, and principles 
essential to communion which implies something in com- 
mon between two minds. The convictions of the human 
mind as to personality and the axioms of ethics lie at 
the basis of both theology and moral science. If right 
and wrong are not the same with God and man, he 
must be forever unknown and unknowable. The moral 



326 JESUS EXULTANT. 

principles imbedded in the mind of man are the most 
important in the universe. There can be no morality 
and no true theology without them. 

How the doctrine of a particular Providence over man 
exalts and ennobles him. Hear Jesus Christ's estimate 
of him : " Behold the fowls of the air ; for they sow not, 
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your 
heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better 
than they? " Again, "How much better is a man than 
a sheep?" We brand as a deistical falsehood that 
verse of the poet Pope in which he attempts to magnify 
the greatness of God by destroying his discriminating 
interest in the affairs of this world, and especially his 
superior valuation of the being who bears his image: — 

" Who views with equal eye a hero perish and a sparrow fall." 

Thus the bard dwarfs his own species in his vain 
attempt to exalt his Creator. Could a Boston mer- 
chant with equal interest see two of his vessels sink, 
the one a mudrscow with its scavenger cargo, and the 
other a majestic ship returning from the East Indies 
laden with his own inestimable ventures? When a 
sparrow falls, God sees an ephemeral animated atom per- 
ish ; but when he sees a man eternally wrecked upon the 
hidden rocks of sin, he sees his own capacious argosy 
founder, freighted with all manner of priceless treasures 
too costly to be replaced. That guardianship of man 
which esteems him so highly as to number the hairs of 
his head, is not designed to conduct him to nothing- 
ness, but to a destiny of inconceivable grandeur and 
blessedness. 

Another truth of Revelation with more than trumpet 



WHAT IS MAN? 327 

tongue proclaims to the wondering universe man's ines- 
timable worth, the incarnation of the only begotten Son, 
styled by St. John "The only begotten God" (i. 18, 
R. V., margin, and Westcott & Hort's text). This 
amazing fact sets man in the Divine regard above all 
other creatures, angels, archangels, cherubim, seraphim, 
thrones, and principalities. " For he took not on him 
the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham." We 
have said that the magnitude of the universe as we 
sweep the heavens with fifty-inch telescopes dwarfs us 
into nothingness. But the condescension of him by 
whom the worlds were made, the Divine Logos, to array 
himself in the soiled robe of fallen humanity, shading 
the intolerable splendor of his Godhood with the opaque- 
ness of a tabernacle of clay — this amazing fact lifts me 
from the dust, and invests me with worth above all the 
vastness and magnificence of the material universe. 
Says the late Dr. Dale : "I am greater than the planets, 
I am greater than the sea; they are subject, I am free. 
My own conscience assures me of this, and it is con- 
firmed by the voice of God. From behind and above 
the forces of the material universe there reaches me a 
word which recognizes my unique prerogative, isolates 
me from all material things, imposes on me the respon- 
sibility of my moral action. The living God who is 
above nature declares that I, too, am above nature, and 
must give an account of myself to him. It is this con- 
ception of our moral relationship to God that invests 
human life with dignity and grandeur which the obscu- 
rest and the most illustrious of our race share alike." 
This " unique prerogative " is brotherhood to the eter- 
nal Son of God through his assumption of my nature. 



328 JESUS EXULTANT. 

This truth of the Gospel, almost too glorious for belief, 
reassures me when I have no strength to stand erect in 
the presence of the immense and immovable order of 
the universe, and am awed and silenced by the vast 
range and irresistible action of material forces. On this 
pedestal, the God-man, the indissoluble union of Divine 
nature and the human nature in the Person of Jesus 
Christ, rests not only man's redemption, but his signifi- 
cance. So long as my feet are firmly planted on this 
pedestal my rank in the scale of being will never be en- 
dangered by any advanced scientific discoveries, or any 
new triumphs over regions before unknown. By assum- 
ing my nature the Almighty Creator has imperialized 
me, and invested me with the insignia of regal rank, 
foreshadowing my conditional coronation and enthrone- 
ment with my elder Brother, the Son of God. Let the 
astronomer multiply a million-fold the space-piercing 
power of his great telescope, resolving into solar sys- 
tems the faintest nebula in the nightly sky, what has 
he done but to gather fresh garlands for the kindred of 
him who founded this boundless kingdom and with a 
human hand sways over it his eternal scepter? 

My New Testament is a wonderful and supernatural 
book. I have scarcely begun to recount its revelations 
of the greatness of man. The atonement even more 
than the incarnation magnifies him. Calvary is a step 
of condescension lower than Bethlehem; the cross is 
lower than the manger, for ignominy is worse than pov- 
erty. Hence the mockery of Golgotha more emphati- 
cally heralds to the universe the preciousness of that 
object which requires so costly a ransom as the life- 
blood of the Son of God. As long as the doctrine of 



WHAT IS MAN ? 329 

the death of Christ as a conditional substitute for the 
punishment of the sinner shall stand as the central 
truth of Christian theology, there will be a sufficient 
counter-balance to all the causes which would belittle 
man. On a theme which constitutes so large a portion 
of the inculcations of the evangelical pulpit we cannot 
longer dwell, though strongly inclined. For in the cross 
of Christ, to which we are conducted to-day in our 
researches, we find the object of our long search, the 
measure of man's greatness. But the New Testament 
contains many strong corroborations of the same funda- 
mental truth. 

Consider for a moment the fact that under the atone- 
ment I am not saved unconditionally, by mere force, as 
a bale of goods is rescued from a burning warehouse. 
I am saved not as a thing, but as a man, the arbiter of 
my own destiny. Here is respect shown by God him- 
self, who earnestly desires that I shall be conformed to 
the image of his Son. But he does not impress that 
image upon me with an almighty trip-hammer, against 
my will, as the head of liberty is stamped on our fed- 
eral coin. He sacredly respects my free agency in the 
formation of my character. He treats me, if you will 
allow the expression, as an associate creator, a brand new 
cause in the universe, the first cause of my own charac- 
ter and destiny. God saves sinners, but only such as 
so believe on his Son as to receive him in loving obe- 
dience to all his commands. The study of the Bible 
discloses an admirable symmetry in its revelations re- 
specting man. He is not great in one place and small 
in another, a giant here and a pygmy there. Jesus 
Christ is represented as a real man, not a phantom in 



330 JESUS EXULTANT. 

human form, but bone of our bone, and flesh of our 
flesh, the climax of humanity, the leader of the proces- 
sion of believers up from the slimy pits of sin to the 
sunlit heights of holiness. All the great transitions in 
his earthly history from the manger to the throne, all 
the tests and contests, all the uplifts and victories of 
his life, will be repeated in the history of every perse- 
vering believer. He experienced the humiliation of 
the tomb. We in common with all the living crea- 
tion shall descend into that darkness. But here man 
parts company with all the orders of animate life be- 
neath him. Jesus said to his disciples : " I am the 
Resurrection, and the Life : he that believeth on me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live." Then he 
proved the truth of this amazing declaration by arising 
on the third day according to his own prediction. In 
him as our file-leader, we, that entombed part of the 
human family called the just, arose to a glorious im- 
mortality, "they that have done good, unto the resur- 
rection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the 
resurrection of condemnation." The resurrection of 
the unjust teaches not conditional immortality, but in- 
herent, constitutional, non-forfeitable immortality. It 
eloquently proclaims that man is too great for annihila- 
tion. The same truth is proclaimed by the sentences 
pronounced by the Judge of the quick and the dead, 
those on the right hand to aionian, everlasting life, 
those on the left hand to aionian, everlasting punish- 
ment. It is evident that Jesus, the truth, designed to 
teach that these opposite sentences are of equal duration. 
The wicked are not too great to be punished. They are 
too great to be blotted out of existence. 



WHAT IS MAN? 331 

The ascension into heaven of our Elder Brother and 
processional leader, with soul an body eternally united 
and glorified, exalts our race in dignity and rank beyond 
all conception and expression. A man sits enthroned 
in power supreme over all created beings. Does not 
that exalt humanity to the summit of greatness. I look 
upward with the eye of faith and see him there. What 
is he doing? He is beckoning me to come up and sit 
by his side clothed in the dazzling radiance which he 
reflects on me his brother confessed. I hear him say, 
as he grasps my hand in warm welcome, " To him that 
overcometh will I grant to set with me in my throne, 
even as I also overcame, and am sit down with my 
Father in his throne." Whenever I attempt in thought 
to scale the height of this tallest promise ever made to 
man, my head swims while I struggle to climb to that 
Alpine summit of heaven whereon Jesus sits, and to 
which he has by his sufferings and intercessions hewn a 
stairway broad enough for the whole race of man to go 
up abreast. It is enough. I need no further argument. 
This apocalypse of the greatness of my species in God's 
eyes, and the exalted destiny possible to every child of 
Adam, reassures and refreshes me after my tedious and 
despairing search through all the belittling philosophies. 
I suddenly grew from a pygmy to a titan when I came 
to the mount called Olivet, and saw two men in white 
apparel pointing upward to that heaven into which the 
ascending Jesus has just passed to prepare a place for 
me for whom he has left the door open behind him. 

"He rose! He rose! He broke the bars of death! 
O the burst gates, crushed sting, demolished throne, 
Last gasp of vanquished Death! Shout, earth and heaven, 



332 JESUS EXULTANT. 

This sum of good to man; whose nature then 
Took wing, and mounted with him from the tombl 
Then, then, we rose; then first humanity- 
Triumphant pass'd the crystal gates of light." 

No more shall the vastness of the universe, ponderous 
orbs naming in the skies, destroy my self-respect, and 
overwhelm me with a sense of my littleness, and tempt 
me to regard my acts, whether good or evil, of no conse- 
quence to myself or to my Creator. He who formed 
those shining globes, and guides them through the shore- 
less oceans of ether with troops of worlds, perchance 
freighted with intelligent moral agents, this Mighty 
Monarch, amid all the cares of his boundless empire, 
"has magnified man and set his heart upon him;" yea, 
he has eternally wedded humanity to his own divinity. 
I will no more think meanly of myself after this full- 
length view of myself in the Gospel looking-glass. I 
will no longer soil with sin that manhood endowed with 
aptitudes which transcend in worth the whole firma- 
ment filled with worlds. 

"I hold a middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth, 
On the last verge of mortal being stand, 
Close to the realms where angels have their birth, 
Just on the borders of the spirit-land. 
The chain of being is complete in me; 
In me is matter's last gradation lost; 
And the next step is spirit, Deity. I can command 
The lightnings and am dust, a monarch and 
A slave, a worm, a god." 

My hearers, my demonstration suggests important 
lessons and imperative obligations. We have endeav- 
ored to awaken in you a consciousness of capacities 



WHAT IS MAN ? 333 

which mere material good, however vast and varied, can 
never satisfy. Cravings always outstrip accumulations 
and argue a capacity for eternal progress. Alexander 
Yon Humboldt, after proposing to describe " the contents 
of space " and actually completing his enormous task in 
his Cosmos, writes thus in his Introduction to that great 
work: "Thus besides the pleasure derived from ac- 
quired knowledge, there lurks in the mind of man 
tinged with a shade of sadness an unsatisfied longing 
for something beyond the present — a striving toward 
regions yet unknown and unoccupied." 

This honest testimony to the unsatisfying nature of 
mere knowledge from a scholar who could write five 
volumes descriptive of the universe without hinting 
that it had a Creator, is, as Shakespeare says, " a con- 
firmation as strong as proof from Holy Writ " that 

" Man has a soul of vast desires 
Which burns within with restless fires." 

Having conducted you to the Cross as the only meas- 
ure of man's amplitude of being, let me exhort you to 
admit the Paraclete in the fullness of his indwelling, as 
the only satisfaction of your infinite craving after happi- 
ness. I am glad that I have a nature which the whole 
universe is too small to fill. An infinite desire implies 
that I was created for loving an infinite Being and 
receiving his infinite love in return. 

If men and women sink into the slime of sin, it is be- 
cause they have no conception of their greatness and 
worth in God's estimation of values, the only true stand- 
ard. They are low-lived because they set a low price 
upon themselves. Hence the way to elevate them is to 



334 JESUS EXULTANT. 

fix their eyes on heaven's measure of man's worth, the 
Cross of Jesus Christ. Their minds should be filled 
with the truths of his Gospel. The upward path is 
found in the diligent study of God's Word, wherein 
man's dignity and value are revealed in their true pro- 
portions. It is said that a thoughtful son of a king, as 
a safeguard against conduct unbecoming his regal rank 
and future coronation, was accustomed to carry with 
him everywhere amid the temptations of his father's 
court, a miniature portrait of his father, and in the hour 
of allurement to sin he would take it out of his bosom 
and look intently at it in order to strengthen himself 
against the power of the tempter. 

Let the image of King Jesus be enstamped on your 
nature as a safeguard against allowing your soul to be 
tarnished by any moral impurity. Become by the new 
birth, the sons of God in the Gospel sense, and you will 
ever hear the voice of " the Spirit of adoption crying in 
your heart Abba, Father." With this voice warbling in 
your ear, you will not only be kept from sinning when 
the sirens warble in your ears, but also you will be 
incited to heroic endeavors to attain moral excellences 
corresponding to your great destiny, a crown and a 
throne. 

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